John Brown, 1800-1859; a biography fifty years after

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JOHN BROWN

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JOHN BROWN

1800 — 1859
91 3Siograpf)^ jfift^ featfi ^fter

BY

OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

A.M., LiTT.D.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Cbe EttierBtlie preaa CambrtBp

1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October iqio

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY BELOVED AND HIGH-MINDED FATHER

HENRY VILLARD

PREFACE

"There never was more need for a good life of any man
than there was for one of John Brown," wrote Charles Eliot
Norton in March, i860, in expressing in the Atlantic Monthly
his dissatisfaction with the first biography of the leader of
the attack upon Harper's Ferry. Twenty-six years later, in
the same publication, Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., wrote that "so
grand a subject cannot fail to inspire a writer able to do jus-
tice to the theme; and when such an one draws Brown, he
will produce one of the most attractive books in the lan-
guage. But meantime the ill-starred 'martyr' suffers a pro-
longation of martyrdom, standing like another St. Sebastian
to be riddled with the odious arrows of fulsome panegyrists."
Since 1886 there have appeared five other lives of Brown, the
most important being that of Richard J. Hinton, who in his
preface gloried in holding a brief for Brown and his men.

The present volume is inspired by no such purpose, but is
due to a belief that fifty years after the Harper's Ferry tragedy,
the time is ripe for a study of John Brown, free from bias,
from the errors in taste and fact of the mere panegyrist, and
from the blind prejudice of those who can see in John Brown
nothing but a criminal. The pages that follow were written
to detract from or champion no man or set of men, but to put
forth the essential truths of history as far as ascertainable,
and to judge Brown, his followers and associates in the light
thereof. How successful this attempt has been is for the
reader to judge. That this volume in nowise approaches the
attractiveness which Mr. Morse looked for, the author fully
understands. On the other hand, no stone has been left un-
turned to make accurate the smallest detail ; the original docu-
ments, contemporary letters and living witnesses have been
examined in every quarter of the United States. Materials
never before utilized have been drawn upon, and others dis-
covered whose existence has heretofore been unknown. Wher-
ever sources have been quoted, they have been cited verbatim
et literatim, the effort being to reproduce exactly spelling,

viii PREFACE

capitalization and punctuation, particularly in John Brown's
own letters, which have suffered hitherto from free-hand
editing. If at times, particularly in dealing with the Kansas
period of John Brown's life, it may seem as if there were a
superfluity of detail, the explanation is that already a hun-
dred myths have attached themselves to John Brown's name
which often hinge upon a date, or the possibility of his pre-
sence at a given place at a given hour. Over some of them have
raged long and bitter controversies which give little evidence
of the softening effects of time.

So complex a character as John Brown's is not to be dis-
missed by merely likening him to the Hebrew prophets or to
a Cromwellian Roundhead, though both parallels are not
inapt; and the historian's task is made heavier since nearly
all characterizations of the man have been at one extreme or
another. But there is, after all, no personality so complex that
it cannot be tested by accepted ethical standards. To do this
sincerely, to pass a deliberate and accurate historical judg-
ment, to bestow praise and blame without favor or sectional
partisanship, has been the author's endeavor.

His efforts have been generously aided by the friends, rela-
tives and associates of John Brown, whenever approached,
and by many others who pay tribute, by their deep interest,
to the vital force of John Brown's story. It would be impos-
sible to mention all here. But to Salmon Brown and Henry
Thompson is due the writer's ability to record for the first
time the exact facts as to the happenings on the Pottawatomie,
and the author is also particularly indebted to Jason Brown,
Miss Sarah Brown, Mrs. Annie Brown Adams, and Mrs.
John Brown, Jr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, F. B. San-
born, Horace White, George B. Gill, Luke F. Parsons, Mrs.
Emma Wattles Morse, Mrs. Rebecca Spring, Jennie Dunbar
(Mrs. Lee Garcelon) and R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, are a few
of the survivors of John Brown's time who have aided by
counsel or reminiscence. Special thanks are due to George
W. Martin, Miss Adams and Miss Clara Francis, of the Kan-
sas Historical Society, for valuable assistance, as well as to
the Historical Department of Iowa, the Western Reserve
Historical Society, the Department of Archives and History
of the Virginia State Library, the Pennsylvania and Massa-

PREFACE

IX

chusetts Historical Societies, and to Louis A. Reese, lately of
Brown University, who generously placed at the author's
disposal the manuscript of his admirable work on "The Ad-
mission of Kansas as a State." Mrs. S. L. Clark, of Berea,
Kentucky, Mrs. S. C. Davis, of Kalamazoo, Miss Leah Talia-
ferro, of Gloucester County, Virginia, Miss Mary E. Thomp-
son, Mrs. Ellen Brown Fablinger, Mrs. J. B. Remington, of
Osawatomie, Kansas, Dr. Thaddeus Hyatt, the family of the
late Joshua R. Giddings, Dr. Frederick C. Waite, of Western
Reserve University, Dr. Henry A. Stevens, of Boston, Cleon
Moore, of Charlestown, West Virginia, William E. Connel-
ley, of Topeka, Kansas, and Edwin Tatham, of New York,
have placed the -author under special obligations here grate-
fully acknowledged.

Dr. Thomas Feathers tonhaugh, of Washington, has been
most generous in giving the author free access to his rich
collections of books, pamphlets and photographs, and they
have been largely drawn upon. The author also gladly records
his lasting indebtedness to Miss Katherine Mayo, whose jour-
neys in search of material for his use have covered a period of
more than two years and many thousands of miles. But for
her judgment, her tact and skill, and her enthusiasm for the
work, it could hardly have approached its present compre-
hensiveness. Finally, without the approval, generous aid and
encouragement of his uncle, Francis Jackson Garrison, of
Boston, the author could not have undertaken or completed
this book.

New York, August i, 1910.

CONTENTS

I. The Moulding of the Man i

II. "H13 Greatest or Principal Object" 42

III. In the Wake of the War Cloud 79

IV. The Captain of the Liberty Guards 112

V. Murder on the Pottawatomie 148

VI. Close Quarters at Black Jack 189

VII. The Foe in the Field 225

VIII. New Friends for Old Visions 267

IX. A Convention and a Postponement 310

X. Shubel Morgan, Warden of the Marches . . .346

XI. The Eve of the Tragedy ^"391

XII. High Treason in Virginia 426

XIII. Guilty before the Law 467

XIV. By Man shall his Blood be Shed 511

XV. Yet shall he Live 558

Notes 591

Appendix

A. " Sambo's Mistakes," by John Brown 659

B. John Brown's Covenant for the Enlistment of his Volunteer-

Regular Company, August, 1856 66'

C. John Brown's Requisition upon the National Kansas Com-

mittee, for an outfit for his proposed Company, January,
1857 664

D. John Brown's Peace Agreement 665

E. Shubel Morgan's Company 666

F. John Brown's Wills 667

G. John Avis's Affidavit as to his Association with John Brown 670
H. A Chronology of John Brown's Movements from his depar-
ture for Kansas, August 13, 1855, to his death, December

2, 1859 672

I. John Brown's Men at Arms 678

xii CONTENTS

Bibliography

I. Manuscript Collections 689

II. Biographies 689

III. Magazine and Other Articles 690

IV. Authorities on the Kansas Period 694

V. Books, Pamphlets and Periodicals relating particularly to the Har-
per's Ferry Raid .... 697

VI. Reports of Important Meetings dealing with the Raid and Execu-
tion 700

VII. Important Speeches and Addresses on John Brown, as separately

published 701

VIII. Some Typical Sermons 702

IX. Biographies, Autobiographies and Reminiscences of Correlated or

Important Persons 703

X. Local and General Histories with Special References to John Brown

and his Men 707

Index 711

ILLUSTRATIONS

John Brown Frontispiece

From a painting by Nahum B. Onthank in the Boston Athenaum. This
was based on a photograph from life by J. W. Black, of Boston, in May,
i8sQ, and the artist had the benefit of the criticisms and suggestions of Mrs.
Brown, John Brown, Jr., and other members of the family. Onthank made
two paintings, one of which was purchased by Thaddeus Hyatt and presented
by him to the People of Hayti, through President Geffrard. The second was
purchased by subscription and given to the Athenceum.

Owen Brown, Father of John Brown 14

From a photograph

Four of John Brown's Sons in Later Years: John Brown,
Jr., Jason, Salmon and Owen Brown 166

From photographs.

The Osawatomie Battlefield, looking toward the River 244

From a photograph.

Part of the Black Jack Battlefield 244

From a photograph.

Main Street of Tabor, Iowa 268

From a photograph.

The Public Square at Tabor 268

From a photograph.

John Brown 282

Photogravure from a daguerreotype {i8s7?) kindly loaned by Mrs. Charles
Fairchild, Cambridge, Mass.

House of Rev. John Todd, Tabor, Iowa 316

Where John Brown stored his guns and ammunition.
From a photograph.

The School-house at Springdale 316

Where the Mock Legislature met.
From a photograph.

John Brown 338

Photogravure from a photograph taken {probably in June, 1858) by J. J.
Hawes, of Boston

John Brown's Northern Supporters: George L. Stearns,
Gerrit Smith, Frank B. Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, Theodore Parker, Samuel G. Howe . . .396

From photographs.

xiv ILLUSTRATIONS

The House at Kennedy Farm, Maryland 404

From a woodcut.

The Cabin across the Road from the Farmhouse . • •404

From a woodcut.

School-house guarded by John E. Cook 404

From a woodcut.

Map of the Harper's Ferry Region 414

General View of Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. . . 428

From a photograph kindly furnished by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Harper's Ferry: The Fighting at the Engine-House . 444

From a woodcut.

Victims of Harper's Ferry: John H. Kagi, Aaron D. Ste-'
vens, Oliver Brown and Watson Brown 448

From photographs.

The Storming of the Engine-house 452

From a woodcut.

The Prison, Guard-House, and Court-House, Charles-
town, West Virginia 486

From a woodcut.

One of John Brown's Letters from Prison 542

Facsimile from the original in possession of Mr. Theodore P. Adams, of
Plymouth, Mass.

John Brown's Last Prophecy 554

Facsimile from the original in possession of Mr. Frank G. Logan, of
Chicago.

The North Elba Farmhouse 562

From a photograph.

John Brown's Grave 562

From a photograph.

Note. — The Osawatomie and Black Jack battlefields, the Todd house at
Tabor, and school-house at Springdale, were photographed by the author in
1908; the views of Kennedy Farm, of the fighting at Harper's Ferry, and of the
Charlestown Court-House and Prison are reproduced from woodcuts in Frank
Leslie's Illustrated Paper (New York) for October and November, 1859; the por-
traits of Owen Brown (father of John Brown), Kagi, Stevens, Oliver and Watson
Brown, and the views of the Farmhouse and Grave at North Elba, are from
photographs kindly lent by Dr. Thomas Featherstonhaugh, of Washington, D. C;
the portraits of John Brown, Jr.. and of Salmon and Owen Brown are from photo-
graphs belonging to Mrs. John Brown, Jr., Put-in Bay, Ohio; that of Jason Brown,
from a photograph made in 1908, for Mr. Earl E. Martin, editor of the Cleve-
land Press.

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 19

their married life, Dianthe gave birth to seven children, dying
August 10, 1832, three days after the coming of a son. Of her
other six children, five grew to manhood and womanhood, all
of marked character and vigorous personality : John Brown,
Jr., Jason, Owen, Ruth and Frederick, the last named meeting
a cruel death in Kansas in his twenty-sixth year. Of these,
Jason alone survives at this writing, at the age of eighty-six.
Dianthe Lusk, too, could boast of an old colonial lineage, for
her ancestry traced back to the famous Adams family of Mas-
sachusetts. There was, however, a mental weakness in the LusIcV
family which manifested itself early in her married life, as
it did in her two sisters." In two of her sons, John Brown,
Jr., and Frederick, there was also a disposition to insanity.
Devoted as he was to his wife, John Brown ruled his home
with a strong hand, in a way that seemed to some akin to
cnielty; but his children and an overwhelming mass of evi-
dence prove the contrary. He did not get on well with his
brother-in-law, Milton Lusk, who refused to attend the wed-
ding because John Brown the Puritan had asked him to visit
his mother and sister on some other day than the Sabbath^
They were at no time congenial, though in later years Milton
Lusk bore no ill-will to his brother-in-law; yet he always
disliked the rigor imposed upon his sister's household. But
the Brown children were devoted to both parents, and revered
always the memory of their mother. They remembered, too,
when symptoms of mental illness appeared, the kindliness and
tenderness with which the husband shielded and tended and
watched over his wife.

As to his children, John Brown at first believed in the use of
the rod, and he was particularly anxious that they should not
yield to the "habit of lying" which had worried him so much
in his own boyhood. "Terribly severe " is the way his punish-
ments were described, and he made no allowance for childish
imaginings. Once when Jason, then not yet four years old, told
of a dream he had had and insisted that it was the reality, his
father thrashed him severely, albeit with tears in his eyes.^^
But in later years, it is pleasant to record, John Brown, after
travelling about the world, came to realize that there were
other methods of dealing with children, and softened consider-
ably, even expressing regret for his early theory and practice

20 JOHN BROWN

of punishments. There are instances in number of touching
devotion to this or that child ; of his sitting up night after night
with an ailing infant. Once he hurried to North Elba from
Troy on the rumor that smallpox had broken out in a near-by
village, in order that he might be on hand to nurse if the
scourge entered his family. He nursed several of his children
through scarlet fever without medical aid, and in consequence
became in demand in other stricken homes in the neighbor-
hood. " Whenever any of the family were sick, he did not often
trust watchers to care for the sick ones, but sat up himself and
was like a tender mother. At one time he sat up every night
for two weeks, while mother was sick, for fear he would over-
sleep if he went to bed, and the fire would go out, and she take
cold. No one outside of his own family can ever know the
strength and tenderness of his character," wrote Mrs. Ruth
Brown Thompson in her reminiscences of her father. His
character was not an unusual one in this respect ;/Jhe combi-
nation of iron discipline with extreme tenderness of hear£|is
often the mark of deep affection and high purpose in men of
power and rigid self-control, and so it was with him. Not
unnaturally, his children reacted from "the very strict con-
trol and Sunday School rules" under which they lived, and
used, as Salmon puts it, " to carry on pretty high," as some of
the neighbors who still live can tell the tale.

Sabbath in the Brown family had all the horrors of the New
England rest day of several generations ago. There were strict
religious observances, and there was no playing and no pre-
tence at playing. Visiting was discouraged, as well as receiving
visits. The head of the family was not without humor, but as
Fowler, the phrenologist, correctly said of him, his jokes were
"more cutting than cute." He inclined to sarcasm, and "his
words were as sharp as his eyes to those who did not please
him." In the final drama at Harper's Ferry, Watson Brown
said to his father: "The trouble is, you want your boys to be
brave as tigers, and still afraid of you." "And that was per-
fectly true" is Salmon Brown's confirmation of the remark.
Similarly, John Brown wanted his children to be as true as
steel, as honest as men and women possibly can be and as
truthful, and yet afraid of him. As was often the case, the
intense religious training given to his children in the broaden-

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 21

ing period of the first half of the nineteenth century resulted
in a reaction. All his sons were strangers to church-ties. Iii^
this their strong feeling in regard to slavery, to which they
came naturally from grandfather and father, played a great
part. Yet this dislike of slavery was never beaten into them ;
nor is it true that John Brown ever forced a son into one of
his campaigns. It is doubtful if he could often have com-
manded such strong natures. Dislike of human bondage, as the\
children grew up, became as inuch a factor in the family's life
as the natural desire for food and clothing and shelter. It was
no more assumed than inculcated ; they hated it with a hatred

greater in SQme..casgs_than_their..w.isa.to JiveTvCTTatever els^
may be said of the Brown family life, or of the father as a dis-
ciplinarian, it is a fact that the children grew up into honorable
men and women, not successful in accumulating worldly goods
in any degree, but as illustrative of the homely virtues as their
father and their grandfather. Temperate they all of them
were, like their father, yet not all or always total abstainers.
John Brown himself, though an abstainer after 1829, firmly
believed that "a free use of pure wines in the country would
do away with a great deal of intemperance, and that it was a
good temperance work to make pure wine and use it." ^^ For
a time two of his sons devoted themselves to grape-growing
for wine purposes, until they finally came to have scruples
against it.

Of John Brown's early life after his marriage there is, for-
tunately, a reliable record. James Foreman, one of his jour-
neymen in 1820, wrote down his recollections of his employer
shortly after the latter's death in 1859,==' for the benefit of
Brown's first biographer, who did not, however, utiUze them.

"It was John Brown's fixed rule," wrote Mr. Foreman, "that
his apprentices and journej^men must always attend church every
Sunday, and family worship every morning. In the summer of 1824
a journeyman of his stole from him a very fine calfskin. Brown dis-
covered the deed, made the man confess, lectured him at length and
then told him he would not prosecute him unless he left his place ;
but, that, if he did leave, he should be prosecuted to the end of the
law.

"The journeyman staid about two months, through fear of pro-
secution ; and in the meantime all hands about the tannery and in
the house were strictly forbidden speaking to him, not even to ask a

22 JOHN BROWN

question; and I think a worse punishment could not have been set
upon a poor human being than this was to him : But it retormed
him and he afterward became a useful man.

" In the fall of the same year his wife was taken sick under pecul-
iar circumstances, and Brown started for the Dr. and some lady
friends, from his residence i^ miles to the centre of Hudson. On his
way he espied two men tying up two bags of apples and making
ready to put them on their horses. Brown immediately tied his own
horse, went to the men and made them empty their apples, own up
to the theft, and settle up the matter before he attended to the case
of his wife. Such was his strict integrity for honesty and justice."

Once, Mr. Foreman remembered, Brown fell into a discus-
sion with a Methodist minister, who, being flippant and fluent,
seemed to talk the tanner down.

" [Brown] afterward commented on the man's manners and said he
should like a public debate with him. Soon after the preacher came
to enquire whether Brown desired, as was reported, a public debate,
and whether, also, if,he had said the speaker was ' no gentleman, let
alone a clergyman.' Brown replied: ' I did say you were no gentle-
man. I said more than that, sir.' 'What did you say, sir? ' enquired
the preacher. 'I said, sir,' replied Brown, 'that it would take as
many men like you to make a gentleman as it would take wrens to
make a cock turkey ! ' The public debate, however, came off, con-
ducted in questions and answers. Brown first to ask all his questions,
which the other should answer and then the reverse. But John
Brown's questions so exhausted and confused his opponent, that the
latter retired without opening his side of the debate. ... So strict
was he that his leather should be perfectly dry before sold, that a
man might come ten miles for five pounds of sole leather and if the
least particle of moisture could be detected in it he must go home
without it. No compromise as to amount of dampness could be
effected. . . . He was jocose and mirthful, when the conversation
did not turn on anything profane or vulgar, and the Bible was almost
at his tongue's end. . . . He considered it as much his duty to help
a negro escape as it was to help catch a horse thief, and of a new
settler . . . [his] first enquiry . . . was whether he was an observer
of the Sabbath, opposed to slavery and a supporter of the gospel and
common schools ; if so, all was right with him ; if not, he was looked
upon by Brown with suspicion. In politics he was originally an
Adams man and afterwards a Whig and I believe a strong one. Yet
I do not believe the time ever was that he would have voted for
Henry Clay, for the reason that he had fought a duel and owned
slaves. ■ • . His food was always plain and simple, all luxuries being
dispensed with and not allowed in his family, and in the year 1830
he rigidly adopted the teetotal temperance principle.

" Hunting, gunning and fishing he had an abhorrence of as learn-

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 23

ing men and boys to idle away their time and learn them lazy habits,
and it was with the greatest reluctance that he would trust a man
with a piece of leather who came after it with a gun on his shoulder.
... He took great pains to inculcate general information among
the people, good moral books and papers, and to establish a reading
community."

In May, 1825, despite the success of his Hudson tannery
and his having built himself a substantial house the year
before, John Brown moved his family to Richmond, Crawford
County, Pennsylvania, near Meadville, where with note-
worthy energy he had cleared twenty-five acres of timber
lands, built a fine tannery, sunk vats, and had leather tan-
ning in them all by the ist of October.^^ The virgin forests
and cheap cost of transportation lured him to his new home.
Here, like his father at Hudson, John Brown was of marked
value to the new settlement at Richmond by his devotion to
the cause of religion and civil order. He surveyed new roads,
was instrumental in erecting school-houses, procuring preach-
ers and "encouraging everything that would have a moral
tendency." It became almost a proverb in Richmond, so Mr.
Foreman records, to say of an aggressive man that he was
"as enterprising and honest as John Brown, and as useful to
the county." This removal of his family gave its young mem-
bers just such a taste of pioneering as their father had had at
Hudson, and was the first of ten migrations under the lead-
ership of their restless head, prior to the emigration to Kansas
of the eldest sons in 1854-55. In Richmond the family dwelt
nearly ten years, until for business reasons the bread-winner
felt himself compelled to return to Ohio."

In the year 1828 John Brown brought into Crawford County
the first blooded stock its settlers had ever seen. Being in-
strumental in obtaining the first post-office in that region,
he received this same year the appointment of postmaster
from President John Quincy Adams, January 7, serving until
May 27, 1835, when he left the State; and there are letters
extant bearing his franks as postmaster of Randolph, as the
new post-office was called. The first school was held alternately
in John Brown's home and that of a Delamater family, con-
nections of Dianthe Lusk, the Delamater children boarding
for the winter terms in Brown's home, and the Brown chil-

24 JOHN BROWN

dren spending the summer terms at the Delamaters', for
a period of four years, only a few other children attending.
George B. Delamater, one of the scholars, retained a vivid
impression of the early winter breakfasts in the Brown family,
"immediately after which Bibles were distributed. Brown
requiring each one to read a given number of verses, himself
leading ; then he would stand up and pray, grasping the back
of the chair at the top and incHning slightly forward," which
solemn moment, so Salmon Brown remembers, the elder chil-
dren frequently utilized for playing tricks on one another.
Sunday religious exercises were at first held in Brown's barn.
Of them Mr. Delamater says, "everything seemed fixed as
fate by the inspiring presence of him whose every movement,
however spontaneous, seemed to enforce conformity to his
ideas of what must or must not be done. . . . He was no
scold, did nothing petulantly; but seemed to be simply an
inspired paternal ruler ; controlling and providing for the circle
of which he was the head," — testimony of value as showing
that even at this early age Brown had the compelling power
of masterful leadership.

Here in Richmond the first great grief came into John
Brown's life in the death of a four-year-old son, Frederick, on
March 31, 1831, and the demise in August, 1832, of Dianthe
Brown and her unnamed infant son who also had such a " short
passage through time." ^* Their graves are still to be found
near the old, now rebuilt, tannery, and are cared for and pro-
tected out of regard for John Brown. Nearly a year later he
was married for the second time, to Mary Anne Day,^° daugh-
ter of Charles Day, of Whitehall, New York, who was then
a resident of Troy township, Pennsylvania. Her father was
a blacksmith, who had been fairly well-to-do, but had lost his
property by endorsing notes, so that Mary Day grew up with
narrow means and almost no schooling. For a time after the
death of Dianthe Brown, Mary's elder sister went to John
Brown's as housekeeper, and Mary, presently, was engaged to
come there to spin. She was then a large, silent girl, only six-
teen years of age. John Brown quickly grew fond of her, per-
haps saw the staying powers in her, and one day gave her a
letter offering marriage. She was so overcome that she dare'd
not read it. Next morning she found courage to do so, and

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 25

when she went down to the spring for water for the house, he
followed her and she gave him her answer there. A woman of
rugged physical health and even greater ruggedness of nature,
she bore for her husband thirteen children within twenty-one
years, of whom seven died in childhood, and two were killed
in early manhood at Harper's Ferry. Besides the lives of the
latter, Oliver and Watson, Mary Day Brown made cheerfully
and willingly many other sacrifices for the cause to which her
husband also gave his life, as will appear later. No one but a
strong character could have borne uncomplainingly the hard-
ships which fell to her lot, particularly in her bleak Adirondack
home in the later years. But she was as truly of the stuff of
which martyrs are made as was her husband — even if she had
had less advantages and opportunities for learning and culture
than he. If there ever was a family in which the mother did
her full share and more of arduous labor, it was this one. No-
thing but the complete faith he had in her ability to be both
mother and guardian of his flock made possible for John Brown
his long absences from home year after year, both when in
business and when warring against slavery in Kansas and
Virginia. And Mary Day Brown was a woman of few words,
even after the catastrophe at Harper's Ferry.

During part of the interval between Dianthe Brown's
death and her husband's remarriage, John Brown boarded
with Mr. Foreman, who had just married. Even in his first
grief, Mr. Foreman remembers, John Brown had a deep
interest in the welfare of his neighbors. Others remember"^
Brown as the organizer of an Independent Congregational
Society, which came into being on January 11, 1832, its arti-
cles of faith being written out in his hand as clerk of the
society. It is recalled, too, that besides being postmaster he/
had for some years the carrying of the mails between Mead-
ville and Riceville, a distance of twenty miles. Politically, he
was at this time an Adams man, and he was still as interested
in the fugitive slave as he had been in Hudson. There was
in the haymow of his barn a roughly boarded room, entered
by a trap-door, and ventilated and equipped for the use of
escaping slaves. The whole was always so cleverly concealed
by hay that a man might stand on the trap-door and yet
see no signs of the hiding-place. In striking contrast to John

26 JOHN BROWN

Brown's later development into a man of disguises, assumed
names and many plots, was his dislike of the Masonic orders.
He became a member of a lodge while residing either in Hud-
son or in Richmond, and for a while was an ardent disciple.
Then, however, he rebelled and withdrew. "Somewhere," so
John Brown, Jr., told the story in after years, " in an historical
museum, I think, is the first firearm that father ever possessed.
The way he came to get it was this: Father had been a Free
Mason for years. You have read about the great excitement
over the disappearance of Morgan, who had threatened to
expose the secrets of Masonry? Well, father denounced the
murder of Morgan in the hottest kind of terms. This was
when we lived over in Pennsylvania. Father had occasion to go
to Meadville. A mob bent on lynching him surrounded the
hotel, but Landlord Smith enabled him to escape through a
back entrance. Father then got a sort of pistol that was about
half rifle, and he became very adept in its use, killing deer with
it on several occasions." ^" It was in September, 1826, that
the country was so excited over the anti-Masonic revelations
of William Morgan which resulted in his murder.

After just ten years of residence in Richmond, John Brown
removed to Franklin Mills, Portage County, Ohio, to go into
the tanning business with Zenas Kent, a well-to-do business
man of that town. In a letter written to him on April 24, 1835,
John Brown thus details the financial distress he found him-
self in, which no doubt accentuated his desire for a new field
of activity: "

"Yours of the 14th was received by last Mail. I was disappointed
in the extreme not to obtain the money I expected ; & I know of
no possible way to get along without it. I had borrowed it for a few
days to settle up a number of honorary debts which I could not
leave unpaid and come away. It is utterly impossible to sell any-
thing for ready cash or to collect debts. I expect Father to come out
for cattle about the first of May and I wish you without fail to send
it by him. It is now to late to think of sending it by mail. I was
intending to turn everything I could into shingles as one way to real-
ize cash in Ohio, before you wrote me about them. 25, dollars of the
money I want is to enable me to carry that object into effect. ..." *

* In spelling and punctuation these earlier letters are superior to the later
epistles; the handwriting is by this time the familiar one, full of character and
strength.

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 27

The partnership of Kent & Brown was not destined to be of
long duration, for the latter had no sooner completed the
tannery at Franklin than it was rented by Marvin Kent, a
son of the senior partner, even before the departments were
ready for operation and the vats in place, so that the business
of tanning hides was never actually carried on by the firm.'^
John Brown then secured a contract for the construction of
part of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, from FrankHn Mills
to Akron, during which time he dealt chiefly with the Kents.
It was a year later that John Brown began some land specu-
lations which proved quite disastrous and did much to injure
his standing and business credit. With a Mr. Thompson he
purchased a farm of more than a hundred acres owned by a
Mr. Haymaker, which then adjoined Franklin village (now
the prosperous town of Kent), believing that the coming oi
the canal and other changes would make Franklin a great
manufacturing town. For this farm there was paid $7000,
mostly money borrowed of Heman Oviatt, who had acquired
large means as a trader with the Indians, and of Frederick
Wadsworth. The farm was quickly plotted by Brown as
" Brown and Thompson's addition to Franklin Village." But
he was far ahead of his time in this scheme, and within a
couple of years the land was foreclosed by Oviatt and Wads-
worth. This tract, crossed by three trunk-line railroads, is
now of great value, containing as it does an island park, the
shops of the Erie Railroad and some large manufactories. The
Haymaker house in which Brown lived is still standing.
About the same time, John Brown, with twenty-one other
prominent men of Franklin, Ravenna and Akron, formed the
Franklin Land company, and purchased of Zenas Kent and
others the water-power, mills, lands, etc., in both the upper
and lower Franklin villages. Through the cooperation of the
canal company, the two water-powers were combined mid-
way between the two villages. A new settlement was then
laid out between both places, and would undoubtedly have
been a successful enterprise, had the canal company lived up
to its agreement. Instead, it drew off largely the waters of
the Cuyahoga River, ostensibly for canal purposes, but in
reality, in the opinion of John Brown and his partners, for the
purpose of pushing Akron ahead at the expense of the new

28 JOHN BROWN

village, to which the Brown and Thompson addition was
planned before the town itself was well under way.

In these and other schemes John Brown became so deeply
involved that he failed during the bad times of 1837, lost
nearly all his property by assignment to his creditors, and
was then not able to pay all his debts, some of which were
never liquidated. His father also lost heavily through him.
While he says in his autobiography that he "rarely failed in
some good degree to effect the things he undertook," this can-
not apply to his business affairs in the 1835 to 1845 period of
his life, or even later, but must be taken as referring to those
philanthropic or public-spirited undertakings in which he had
won a name for himself a short time previous to that story of
his life. In 1842 he was even compelled to go through bank-
ruptcy. Naturally, all this greatly damaged Brown's business
standing, and created with some people who had lost money
through him that doubt of his integrity which so often follows
the loss of money through another. But the final verdict in
the vicinity of Franklin was summed up recently by the late
Marvin Kent. To him Brown was at this early period a man
of "fast, stubborn and strenuous convictions that nothing
short of a mental rebirth could ever have altered ; " a " man of
ordinary calibre with a propensity to business failure in what-
ever he attempted." * There is no allegation of dishonesty,
despite the unpaid accounts and protested notes still on
the books of Marvin Kent and his father. Heman Oviatt, of
Richfield, Ohio, who lent John Brown money and became in-
volved in lawsuits in consequence, testified to his integrity,
and so do many others. But there can be no question that
after leaving Richmond, Pennsylvania, he was anything but
successful in business, and his affairs became so involved as
to make it a matter of regret that he could not have devoted
himself exclusively to tanning and farming in Richmond. To
his son, John Brown, Jr., he in after years explained his mis-
fortunes by saying that these grew out of one root — doing
business on credit." "Instead of being thoroughly imbued
with the doctrine of pay as you go, I started out in life with

* "It is a Brown trait to be migratory, sanguine about what they think they
can do, to speculate, to go into debt, and to make a good many failures." — Jason
Brown, December 28, 1908.

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 29

the idea that nothing could be done without capital, and that
a poor man must use his credit and borrow ; and this pernicious
notion has been the rock on which I, as well as many others,
have split. The practical effect of this false doctrine has been
to keep me like a toad under a harrow most of my business
life. Running into debt includes so much evil that I hope all
my children will shun it as they would a pestilence." The
purchase of four farms on credit seems to have been a chief
cause of Brown's collapse." Three of these Franklin farms
were said to be worth twenty thousand dollars before the
financial crash of 1837.

Brown quitted Franklin Mills in 1837, returning with his
family to Hudson, but only for a brief period. He seems to
have alternated between the two places until 1841. One of
his ventures at this period was breeding race-horses. In 1838
began his long years of travelling about the country. His first
recorded visit to New York, after reaching manhood, was on
December 5, 1838, when he drove some cattle from Ohio to
Connecticut. ' ' My unceasing & anxious care for the present
and everlasting welfare of every one of my family seems to be
threefold as I get seperated farther and farther from them," he
wrote home from the metropolis.'* On this trip he negotiated
for the agency of a New York steel scythes house, and on
the i8th of January, at West Hartford, Connecticut, made
a purchase of ten Saxony sheep for one hundred and thirty
dollars, — this being the beginning of his long career as John
Brown the Shepherd.'^ Other purchases of Saxony sheep fol-
low in quick succession, according to the entries in the first of
a series of notebooks which often did duty as rough diaries.
The sheep he seems to have taken by boat to Albany and
driven thence to Ohio; his notebook teems at this time with
hints for the care of sheep and such quaint entries as the fol-
lowing: "Deacon Abel Hinsdale left off entirely the use of
Tobacco at the age of 66 now 73 & has used none since that
time. No ba[d] consequnses have followed. Qery When will a
man become to old to leave off any bad habit."

In June, 1839, when his family was again in Franklin Mills,
he made another trip to the East on cattle business, the fol-
lowing being a typical home letter of this, for him, so trying
and disastrous period: "

30 JOHN BROWN

Newhartford I2th June 1839
My Dear wife & children

I write to let you know that I am in comfortable health & that I
expect to be on my way home in the course of a week should nothing
befall me If I am longer detained I will write you again. The cattle
business has succeeded about as I expected, but I am now some what
in fear that I shall fail of getting the money I expected on the loan.
Should that be the will of Providence I know of no other way but
we must consider ourselves verry poor for our debts must be paid,
if paid at a sacrifise. Should that happen (though it may not) I hope
God who is rich in mercy will grant us all grace to conform to our
circumstances with cheerfulness & true resignation. I want to see
each of my dear family verry much but must wait Gods time. Try
all of you to do the best you can, and do not one of you be discour-
aged, tomorrow may be a much brighter day. Cease not to ask Gods
blessing on yourselves and me. Keep this letter wholly to yourselves,
excepting that I expect to start for home soon, and that I did not
write confidently about my success should anyone enquire Edward
is well, & Owen Mills. You may shew this to my Father, but to no
one else.

I am not without great hopes of getting relief I would not have
you understand, but things have looked more unfavourable for a few
days. I think I shall write you again before I start. Earnestly com-
mending you every one to God, and to his mercy, which endureth
forever, I remain your affectionate husband and father

John Brown

The friends here I believe are all well.

J. B.

Three days after writing this letter, John Brown received
from the New England Woolen Company, at Rockville, Con-
necticut, the sum of twenty-eight hundred dollars through
its agent, George Kellogg, for the purchase of wool, which
money, regrettably enough, he pledged for his own benefit and
was then unable to redeem. '* Fortunately for him, the Com-
pany exercised leniency toward him, in return for which
Brown promised, in 1842, after having passed through bank-
ruptcy, to pay the money from time to time, with interest, as
Divine Providence might enable him to do. This moral obli-
gation he freely recognized, as will appear from the follow-
ing letter to Mr. Kellogg, written in 1840, when Brown was
temporarily in Hudson again, and in such distressing cir-
cumstances that he had not the means to pay the postage for
forwarding two letters from Mr. Kellogg which had been
sent to him at Franklin Mills: '^

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 31

"That means are so very limited is in consequence of my being
left penyless for the time being, by the assignment and disposal of
my property with no less than a family of ten children to provide for,
the sickness of my wife and three of my oldest children since that
time, and the most severe pressure generally for want of money ever
known in this Country. Specie is almost out of the question and no-
thing but specie will pay our postage. ... I learned a good while
after the delivery of the Flour and Wool, to my further mortification
and sorrow that they had not been forwarded when I expected, but
was assured they should be immediately. I hope they have been
received safe, and I most earnestly hope that the Devine Providence
will yet enable me to make you full amends for all the wrong I have
done, and to give you and my abused friend Whitman (whose name
I feel ashamed to mention) some evidence that the injury I have
occasioned was not premeditated and intentional at least."

In pledging himself to pay, John Brown promised to prove
"the sincerity of my past professions, when legally free to act
as I choose." " At his death in 1859, this debt like many
another was still unpaid, and John Brown bequeathed fifty
dollars toward its payment by his last will and testament.
It was not only that he was visionary as a business man, but
that he developed the fatal tendency to speculate, doubtless
an outgrowth of his restlessness and the usual desire of the
bankrupt for a sudden coup to restore his fortunes.

In the intervals of sheep and cattle trading, he and his
father conceived the idea in 1840 of taking up some of the
Virginia (now in Doddridge and Tyler counties of West Vir-
ginia) land belonging to Oberlin College. He appeared April i,
1840, before a committee of Oberlin trustees and opened nego-
tiations with it for the survey and purchase of some of the
Virginia possessions. ^^ Two days later, the full board con-
sidered a letter from John Brown in which he offered "to
visit, survey and make the necessary investigation respecting
boundaries, etc, of those lands, for one dollar per day, and a
modest allowance for necessary expenses." This communica-
tion also stated frankly that this was to be a preliminary step
towards locating his family upon the lands, "should the open-
ing prove a favorable one." The trustees promptly voted
to accept the offer, and the treasurer was ordered to furnish
John Brown with "a commission & needful outfit." This
was promptly done the same day, and by the 27th of April,
Brown thus wrote from Ripley, Virginia, to his wife and chil-

32 JOHN BROWN

dren: " I have seen the spot where, if it be the will of Provi-
dence, I hope one day to live with my family." He liked the
country as well as he had expected to, "and its inhabitants
rather better." Were they, he believed, "as resolute and in-
dustrious as the Northern people, and did they understand
how to manage as well, they would become rich; but they are
not generally so." That John Brown did not subsequently
settle on these Virginia lands is not, however, to be charged
to the will of Providence, but to himself. His surveys and
reports were duly received by the Oberlin trustees on July
14, 1840, and on August 11 they voted to address a letter
to him on the subject. Through his own fault, however, nego-
tiations dragged so that the whole plan fell through. This
appears from John Brown's letters to Levi Burnell, the trea-
surer of Oberlin, who had duly notified him that the Pruden-
tial Committee of the trustees had been authorized by the
board to perfect negotiations and convey to "Brother John
Brown of Hudson One Thousand acres of our Virginia Land
on conditions suggested in the correspondence . . . between
him and the Committee." On October 20, Mr. Burnell wrote
to Owen Brown asking for the status of the negotiations. He
received no answer from John Brown until January 2, 1841.
This reply shows that the latter had been vacillating through-
out the fall as to whether he should or should not move to
Virginia, and runs in part thus :

"I should have written you before but my time has been com-
pletely taken up, and owing to a variety of circumstances I have
sometimes allmost given up the idea of going to the south at all ; but
after long reflection, and consultation about it, I feel prepared to
say definitely that I expect Providence willing to accept the pro-
posal of your Board, and that I shall want every thing understood,
and aranged as nearly as may be, for my removal in the next Spring.
I would here say that I shall expect to receive a thousand acres of
land in a body that will includ a living spring of water dischargeing
itself at a heighth sufficient to accommodate a tanery as I shall
expect to pursue that business on the small scale if I go. It is my
regular occupation. I mentioned several such springs in my report,
but found them very scarce."

Meanwhile, the college had experienced a change of heart,
apparently, because of Brown's procrastination, as appears
from his letter of February 5, 1841, to Mr. Burnell:

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 33

Hudson 5th Feby 1841
Levi Burnell Esqr

Dr Sr: I have just returned from a journey to Pa, and have read
yours of 20th Jany, & must say that I am somewhat disappointed
in the information which it brings ; & considering all that has passed,
that on the part of the Institution I had not been called upon to
decide positively nor even advised of any hurry for a more definite
answer ; & that on my part I had never intimated any other than an
intention to accept the offer made ; nor called for my pay, I should
think your Committee would have done nearer the thing that is
right had they at least signified their wish to know my determina-'
tion, before putting it out of their power to perform what they had
engaged. Probably I was not so prompt in makeing up my mind
fully, & in communicating my determination as I had ought to
be, & if Providence intends to defeat my plans there is no doubt
the best of reasons for it, & we will rejoice that he who directs the
steps of men knows perfectly well how to direct them ; & will most
assuredly make his counsel to stand. A failure of the consideration
I do not so much regard as the derangement of my plan of future
opperations. If the Virginia lands are, or are not disposed of, I wish
you would give me the earliest information, & in the event of their
still remaining on hand I suppose it not unreasonable for me still
to expect a fulfillment of the offer on the part of the Institution.
Should the land be conveyed away perhaps your Committee or
some of the friends might still be instrumental in getting me an
employment at the south. Please write me as soon as you have
any information to give

Respectfully your friend

John Brown.

To this letter no answer was returned. On March 26,
Brown again wrote from Hudson asking whether the lands
had been sold. If the committee no longer wished to nego-
tiate with him, they need only say so frankly and send him
thirty dollars (for which he had waited nearly a year),
upon receipt of which he would "consider the institution
discharged from all further obligation." Thus ended the first
plan for an exodus of the John Brown family.

As a result of this disappointment. Brown was compelled
to turn to sheep-herding, taking charge in the spring of 1841
of the flocks of Captain Oviatt at Richfield, Ohio, and speed-
ily becoming known as a remarkable shepherd, able to tell
at a glance the presence within his flock of a strange animal.
This partnership arrangement proving satisfactory, Brown
again moved his family, in 1842, to Richfield, where he had

34 JOHN BROWN

the great misfortune to lose, in 1843, four of his children, aged
respectively, nine, six, three and one years, three of them
being buried at one time, — a crushing family calamity.
The beginning of the family's stay in Richfield was marked,
too, by Brown's discharge as a bankrupt, stripped of every-
thing but a few articles which the court had decided on Sep-
tember 28, 1842, were absolutely necessary to the maintenance
of the family, — among them eleven Bibles and Testaments,
•one volume entitled 'Beauties of the Bible,' one 'Church
Member's Guide,' besides two mares, two cows, two hogs,
three lambs, nineteen hens, seven sheep, and, last of all, three
pocket knives valued at 37 J^ cents. ^^ Gradually, Brown be-
came well known as a winner of prizes for sheep and cattle
at the annual fairs of Summit County, and before his removal
from Richfield to Akron, April 10, 1844, he had established
a tannery which, at the beginning of that year, was unable
to keep up with the business offered to it. This change of
residence was due to the establishment of a new business
partnership, the longest and the final one of John Brown's
career. It was, to quote him:^'

" a copartnership with Simon Perkins, Jr., of Akron, with a view to
carry on the sheep business extensively. He is to furnish all the feed
and shelter for wintering, as a set-off against our taking all the care
of the flock. All other expenses we are to share equally, and to divide
the profits equally. This arrangement will reduce our cash rents at
least $250 yearly, and save our hiring help in haying. We expect
to keep the Captain Oviatt farm for pasturing, but my family will
go into a very good house belonging to Mr. Perkins, — say from a
half a mile to a mile out of Akron. I think this is the most com-
fortable and most favorable arrangement of my worldly concerns
that I ever had, and calculated to afford us more leisure for im-
provement, by day and by night, than any other. I do hope that
God has enabled us to make it in mercy to us, and not that he
should send leanness into our souls. . . . This, I think, will be con-
sidered no mean alliance for our family, and I most earnestly hope
they will have wisdom given to make the most of it. It is certainly
indorsing the poor bankrupt and his family, three of whom were
but recently in Akron jail, in a manner quite unexpected, and proves
that notwithstanding we have been a company of ' Belted Knights,'
our industrious and steady endeavors to maintain our integrity
and our character have not been wholly overlooked. Mr. Perkins
is perfectly advised of our poverty, and the times that have passed
over us."

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 35

John Brown was within bounds in thus exulting; the most
trying financial periods of his life were now behind him, even
though the Perkins partnership resulted eventually in severe
losses and dissolution. At least it was a connection with a
high-minded and prosperous man, and it lasted ten years.
When it was over, the partners were still friends, but Mr.
Perkins did not retain a high opinion of John Brown's ability
or sagacity as a business man.

It was a lovely neighborhood, this about Akron, to which
Brown now removed his family. They occupied a cottage
on what is still known as Perkins Hill, near Simon Perkins's
own home, with an extended and charming view over hill
and dale, — an ideal sheep country, and a location which
must have attracted any one save a predisposed wanderer.
Here the family life went on smoothly, though not without
its tragedies, notably the death of his daughter Amelia, acci-
dentally scalded to death through the carelessness of an elder
sister. This brought forth from the afflicted father, who was
absent in Springfield, the following letter:*^

Springfield 8th Nov 1846
Sabbath evening
My Dear afflicted wife & children

I yesterday at night returned after an absence of several days from
this place & am uterly unable to give any expression of my feelings
on hearing of the dreadful news contained in Owens letter of the
30th & Mr. Perkins of the 31st Oct. I seem to be struck almost
dumb.

One more dear little feeble child I am to meet no more till the
dead small & great shall stand before God. This is a bitter cup
indeed, but blessed be God : a brighter day shall dawn ; & let us not
sorrow as those that have no hope. Oh that we that remain, had
wisdom wisely to consider ; & to keep in view our latter end. Divine
Providence seems to lay a heavy burden; & responsibility on you
my dear Mary ; but I trust you will be enabled to bear it in some
measure as you ought. I exceedingly regret that I am unable to
return, & be present to share your trials with you : but anxious as I
am to be once more at home I do not feel at liberty to return yet.
I hope to be able to get away before verry long; but cannot say
when. I trust that none of you will feel disposed to cast an unrea-
sonable blame on my dear Ruth on account of the dreadful trial we
are called [to] suffer; for if the want of proper care in each, & all ef
us has not been attended with fatal consequenses it is no thanks
to us. If I had a right sence of my habitual neglect of my familys

36 JOHN BROWN

Eternal interests; I should probably go crazy. I humbly hope this
dreadful afflictive Providence will lead us all more properly to ap-
preciate the amazeing, unforseen, untold, consequences; that hang
upon the right or wrong doing of things seemingly of tnflmg accourit.
Who can tell or comprehend the vast results for good, or for evil ;
that are to follow the saying of one little word. Evrythmg worthy
of being done at all ; is worthy of bemg done m good earnest, & m the
best possible manner. We are in midling health & expect to write
some of you again soon. Our warmest thanks to our kind friends
Mr. & Mrs. Perkins & family. From your affectionate husband, &

father ^ „

John Brown

While Brown's self-accusation of "habitual neglect" is
no more to be borne out than his father's charging himself
with a wasted life, it is true that some of his neighbors won-
dered that he did not give more time to his family. That
Akron home he ruled, as he did the later one at Springfield,
with iron firmness and complete mastery, and as long as the
children were with him they were under strict discipline,
although the cane figured now but little. This was a relief to
him as well as to his sons, for it is related of him that after
he had given only a certain part of some blows he meant to
bestow, he gave his whip to his son and bade him strike his
father.'*^ Yet he exacted loyalty of his children as he did
fealty from his animals. It is a widely believed story in Akron
to this day that John Brown once shot — to the horror of
the children — a valuable shepherd dog, because it was so
fond of the Perkins children as to be unwilling to stay at
home. It is similarly narrated that he compelled his wife to
ride to church with him on a pillion on a young and unbroken
horse he wished to tame, with the result that she was twice
thrown. ^^ One thing is beyond doubt: but little reference
to his children's schooling appears in his letters, if we except
those written to his daughter Ruth while she was away at
school. Only John Brown, Jr., obtained special educational
advantages.

While the family life flowed on in this wise, the aftermath
of its head's business failure remained to plague him in the
shape of many lawsuits. On the records of the Portage
County Court of Common Pleas at Ravenna, Ohio, are no
less than twenty-one lawsuits in which John Brown figured

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 37

as defendant during the years from 1820 to 1845." Of these,
thirteen were actions brought to recover money loaned on
promissory notes either to Brown singly or in company with
others. The remaining suits were mostly for claims for wages
or payments due, or for non-fulfilment of contracts. Judg-
ment against Brown was once entered by his consent for a
nominal sum, and another case was an amicable suit in debt.
In ten other cases he was successfully sued and judgments
were obtained against him individually or jointly with others.
In three cases those who sued him were "non-suited" as
being without real cause for action, and two Other cases were
settled out of court. Four cases Brown won, among them
being a suit for damages for false arrest and assault and bat-
tery, brought by an alleged horse-thief because Brown and
other citizens had aided a constable in arresting him. A num-
ber of these suits grew out of Brown's failure and his real
estate speculations. A serious litigation was an action brought
by the Bank of Wooster to recover on a bill of exchange drawn
by Brown and others on the Leather Manufacturers Bank of
New York, and repudiated by that institution on the ground
that Brown and his associates had no money in the bank.
During the suit the original amount claimed was rapidly re-
duced, and when the judgment against Brown and his associ-
ates was rendered, it was for $917.65. In June, 1842, Brown
was sued by Tertius Wadsworth and Joseph Wells, in partner-
ship with whom he had been buying and driving cattle to
Connecticut. In 1845, Daniel C. Gaylord, who several times
had sued Brown, succeeded in compelling Brown and his as-
sociates to convey to him certain Franklin lands which they
had contracted to sell, but the title for which they refused
to convey. The court upheld Gaylord's claim. The only case
in which Brown figured as plaintiff was settled out of court
in his favor.

But the most important suit of Brown's business life, and
the one which has been oftenest cited to injure his business
reputation, was a complicated one which grew out of one
of these Ravenna cases. ^^ On July 11, 1836, he applied to
Heman Oviatt, Frederick Brown, Joshua Stow and three
brothers of the name of Wetmore, to become security for him
on a note to the Western Reserve Bank for $6000. The note

38 JOHN BROWN

not being paid, the bank sued and obtained judgment against
ail of them in May, 1837, and on August 2, 1837. they all
gave their joint judgment bond to the bank, payable in sixty
days. This not being paid, the bank again sued, and, an
execution being issued, Heman Oviatt was compelled to pay
the bank in full. He then in turn sued John Brown and
his fellow endorsers. The litigation which followed was
greatly complicated by Brown's actions in connection with
a piece of property known as Westlands, for which he had at
first not the title, but a penal bond of conveyance. Brown
gave this bond to Oviatt as collateral for Oviatt's having en-
dorsed the judgment bond to the bank. When the deed for
the Westlands property was duly given to Brown, he recorded
it without notifying Oviatt of this action. Later, he mortgaged
this property to two men, again without the knowledge of
Heman Oviatt. Meanwhile Daniel C. Gaylord had recovered
judgment against Brown in another transaction, and to sat-
isfy it, caused the sale of Westlands by the sherifif. At John
Brown's request, Amos P. Chamberlain, heretofore a warm
friend and business associate of Brown's, bought in the pro-
perty at the sheriff's sale, doubtless with the idea that Brown
would presently find the money to buy it back for himself.
But as soon as Oviatt was compelled to pay off the judgment
bond at the Western Reserve Bank, he naturally wished to
reimburse himself by the penal bond of conveyance of West-
lands, which, he felt, gave him the title to the property. Find-
ing that, through the land transactions already related, the
penal bond had become valueless, he brought suit to have
the sale of Westlands to Chamberlain set aside as fraudulent.
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that Chamberlain had a
rightful title and dismissed the suit. John Brown himself was
not directly sued by Oviatt, being, to use a lawyer's term,
"legally safe" throughout the entire transaction. From the
point of view of probity and fair play he does not, however,
escape criticism. He was morally bound to reimburse those
who had aided him to obtain the money from the bank and
had suffered thereby. Even after this lapse of years, his action
in secretly recording the transfer of the land and then mort-
gaging it bears an unpleasant aspect. It is quite probable that
this complication was due to the great confusion of Brown's

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 39

affairs, and his own poor business head. Moreover, it may
well be that in due course Oviatt and the other securities
were repaid in full by Brown during his period of prosperity
with Mr. Perkins. Certainly, as already stated, Heman Oviatt
bore Brown no grudge in after years. On the other hand,
Brown may have taken advantage of the bankruptcy pro-
ceedings to escape liability for these debts.

The story of this case does not, however, end here. John
Brown refused for a time to give up Westlands to Amos Cham-
berlain, believing that he had the right to pasture his cattle
there temporarily, and still, apparently, thinking that Cham-
berlain had purchased the farm not for occupancy but for
the purpose of turning it back to him. After having repeat-
edly summoned Chamberlain for trespass on the land which
Chamberlain had actually purchased, John Brown and his
sons held a shanty on the place by force of arms until com-
pelled to desist by the arrival of the sheriff summoned by
Chamberlain. According to the Chamberlain family, John
Brown ordered his sons to shoot Chamberlain if he set foot
on the farm, — a statement vigorously denied by John Brown,
Jr. Jason Brown recollects that "father put us all in the
cabin on the farm with some old-fashioned muskets and we
stayed in it night and day. Then Mr. Chamberlain sued
father and sent a constable and his posse to drive us out.
We showed them our guns. Then he got the sheriff of Port-
age County to come out and arrest us. Of course we could
not resist the sheriff." Finally the sheriff arrested John Brown
and two sons, John and Owen, who were thereupon placed
in the Akron jail. Chamberlain, having destroyed the shanty
which Brown had occupied and obtained possession of the
land, allowed the case to drop, and Brown and his sons were
released."

Fortunately for John Brown's side of the case, there has
just come to light a letter he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain in
order to prevent, if possible, the carrying on of a long litigation.
It records the spirit in which John Brown acted, and proves
him to have been sincerely of the opinion that he had been
gravely wronged, and that, in holding his farm as he did, Mr.
Chamberlain not only injured Brown, but also the latter's
innocent creditors. No one can maintain, after the perusal

40 JOHN BROWN

of this communication, that Brown was unreasoning in the
matter, or that he was deliberately trying to defraud a neigh-
bor of land righteously purchased. It is altogetherhkely that
if similar documents in regard to the other cases cited, which
appear, on the surface, to make against John Brown's probity,
could be found, these other entanglements would also be
susceptible of a far better interpretation. The letter to Mr.
Chamberlain, offering peace or arbitration before war, reads

as follows : ^''

Hudson 27th April 1841
Mr. Amos Chamberlain

Dear Sir

I was yesterday makeing preparation for the commencement
and vigorous prosecution of a tedious, distressing, wasteing, and
long protracted war, but after hearing by my son of some remarks
you made to him I am induced before I proceed any further in the
way of hostile preparation: to stop and make one more earnest
effort for Peace And let me begin by assureing you that notwith-
standing I feel myself to be deeply and sorely injured by you, (with-
out even the shadow of a provocation on my part to tempt you
to begin as you did last October ;) I have no conciousness of wish
to injure either yourself or any of your family nor to interfere with
your happiness, no not even to value of one hair of your head. I
perfectly well remember the uniform good understanding and good
feeling which had ever (previous to last fall) existed between us
from our youth. I have not forgotten the days of cheerful labour
which we have performed together, nor the acts of mutual kindness
and accomodation which have passed between us. I can assure you
that I ever have been and still am your honest, hearty friend. I
have looked with sincere gratification uppon your steady growing
prosperity, and flattering prospects of your young family. I have
made your happiness and prosperity my own instead of feeling
envious at your success. When I antisipated a return to Hudson
with my family I expected great satisfaction from again haveing
you for a neighbour. This is true whatever you may think of me, or
whatever representation you may make of me to others. And now
I ask you why will you trample on the rights of your friend and of his
numerous family? Is it because he is poor? Why will you kneed-
lessly make yourself the means of depriveing all my honest creditors
of their Just due? Ought not my property if it must be sacrifised to
fall into the hands of honest and some of them poor and suffering
Creditors? Will God smile on the gains which you may acquire at
the expence of suffering families deprived of their honest dues? And
let me here ask Have you since you bid off that farm felt the same
inward peace and conciousness of right you had before felt? I do
not believe you have, and for this plain reason that you have been

THE MOULDING OF THE MAN 41

industrious in circulateing evil reports of me (as I believe) in order to
prevent the community from enquiring into your motives and con-
duct. This is perfectly natural, and no new thing under the sun. If
it could be made to appear that Naboth the Jezreelite had blas-
phemed God and the King, then it would be perfectly right for Ahab
to possess his vineyard. So reasoned wicked men thousands of years
ago. I ask my old friend again is your path a path of peace? does
it promise peace? I have two definite things to offer you once and
for all. One is that you take ample security of Seth Thompson for
what you have paid and for what you may have to pay (which
D. C. Gaylord has ever wickedly refused) and release my farm and
thereby provide for yourself an honorable and secure retreat out of
the strife and perplexity and restore you to peace with your friends
and with yourself. The other is that if you do not like that offer,
that you submit the matter to disinterested, discreet, and good men
to say what is just and honest between us.

You may ask why do not you go to Thompson for your relief. I
answer that I should do so at once, but I cannot recover anything of
Thompson but the face of the note and interest, nothing for all the
costs, and expences, and penalties and sacrifise of my property.
All Thompson is either morally or legally bound to pay is the note
and interest. He is an inocent and honest debtor and when in his low
state of health, and the extreme pressure he could not pay the money
promptly came forward [and] offered his land as security. That
security is still kept for the purpose, as I positively know any state-
ments to the contrary notwithstanding.

I now ask you to read this letter calmly, and -patiently, and often,
and show it to your neighbours, and friends, such as Mr. Zina Post
and many other worthy men and advise with them before you at-
tempt to force your way any further. I ask you to make it your first
business and give me without delay your final determination in
regard to it.

Respectfully your friend

John Brown.

This appeal to reason and friendliness ought to have soft-
ened Mr. Chamberlain's heart. No one now knows just what
the result was; but since there is no evidence of a "tedious,
distressing, wasteing, and long protracted war" between the
neighbors, it is likely that it had its effect. At any rate, it
closes a chapter of John Brown's business life which, besides
occasioning him deep and poignant distress, left its marks
upon him. Had he not, however, been withal a strong, seri-
ous and fundamentally honest character, he must have been
completely wrecked upon the shoals out of which, with Mr.
Perkins's aid, he was now to find his way.

CHAPTER II
"HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT"

When was it that John Brown, practical shepherd, tanner,
farmer, surveyor, cattle expert, real estate speculator and
wool-merchant, first conceived what he calls in his autobio-
graphy "his greatest or principal object" in life — the forci-
ble overthrow of slavery in his native land? The question
is not an idle one, since the object adopted as the magnetic
needle to guide his destiny eventually resulted in the rousing
of a nation to its smallest hamlet, and beyond doubt pre-
cipitated the bloody civil war which others besides John
Brown clearly foresaw. The mystery of individuality does
not lose anything of its spell with the passage of time; in
the case of this strongly marked character, there is nothing
concerning it of greater interest than the transformation of
the simple guardian of flocks and tiller of the soil, Spartan
in his rugged simplicity of living, into an arch-plotter, a
man of many disguises, a belligerent pioneer, a fugitive be-
fore the law at one moment and an assailant of a sovereign
government in the next. Psychologists must find in such an
evolution of spirit a field for inquiry and speculation without
end. Why should one who so hated the profession of arms be
the first to take it up in order to free the slave from his chains?
What was there in the humdrum life of an Ohio farmer to
cause him to espouse the role of a border-chieftain in the
middle of the nineteenth century? From what midnight star
did this shepherd draw his inspiration to go forth and kill?
What was there in the process of tanning to make a man who
had never seen blood spilt in anger ready to blot out the lives
of other beings whose chief crime was that they differed with
him as to the righteousness of human bondage? Why should
the restless iron spirit of the Roundhead suddenly have mani-
fested itself in this prosaic seller of town lots when he had
spent more than five decades in peace and quiet? Doubtless
the answer to some of these questions must be left to the new
science which would plot and chart the soul, and measure to

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 43

the hundredth of a degree each quivering emotion. But the
historian may properly inquire when it was that the "greatest
or principal object" of this militant reformer's life first began
to manifest itself in his acts and deeds.

John Brown's horror of the South's "peculiar institution,"
as it affected individuals, we know to have come to him, as
the autobiography again testifies, at the age of twelve, when,
he says, he declared, or swore, "eternal war with slavery."
But the oaths' of a lad of such tender years do not often be-
come the guiding force of maturity; in John Brown's case,
not even his constant friendliness to fugitive slaves permits
the assumption that early in his manhood he had definitely
resolved upon the plan of overthrowing slavery by men and
arms which he finally chose. Not until his thirty-fifth yea?
is there direct documentary evidence that his mind was espe-
cially concerning itself with the welfare of the black man in
bondage, — that is, to any greater extent than were the minds
and consciences of hundreds, if not thousands, of Ohio farmers
who were later among the strongest enemies of human laond-
age, and even then were dauntless station-masters and con-
ductors on the rapidly expanding Underground Railroad. In
November, 1834, when John Brown's stay in Pennsylvania
was actually within six months of its close, when he was,
however, apparently to remain in Richmond as a successful
tanner and farmer, he first expressed on paper a wish to aid
his fellow-Americans in chains. It is in the following epistle
to his brother Frederick, unstamped because it bears the
frank of John Brown, then still postmaster at Randolph, of
which Richmond was a part : *

Randolph, Nov. 21, 1834.
Dear Brother, — As I have had only one letter from Hudson
since you left here, and that some weeks since, I begin to get uneasy
and apprehensive that all is not well. I had satisfied my mind about
it for some time, in expectation of seeing father here, but I begin to
give that up for the present. Since you left here I have been trying
to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical
way for my poor fellow-men who are in bondage, and having fully
consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed
to get at least one negro boy or youth, and bring him up as we do
our own, — viz., give him a good English education, learn him what
we can about the history of the world, about business, about general

44 JOHN BROWN

subjects, and, above all, try to teach him the fear of God. We think
of three ways to obtain one: First, to try to get some Christian
slave-holder to release one to us. Second, to get a free one if no one
will let us have one that is a slave. Third, if that does not succeed,
we hav6 all agreed to submit to considerable privation in order to
buy one. This we are now using means in order to effect, in the con-
fident expectation that God is about to bring them all out of the
house of bondage.

I will just mention that when this subject was first introduced,
Jason had gone to bed; but no sooner did he hear tbe thing hinted,
than his warm heart kindled, and he turned out to have a part in
the discussion of a subject of such exceeding interest. I have for,
years been trying to devise some way to get a school a-going here
for blacks, and I think that on many accounts it would be a most
favorable location. Children here would have no intercourse with
vicious people of their own kind, nor with openly vicious persons
of any kind. There would be no powerful opposition influence
against such a thing; and should there be any, I believe the settle-
ment might be so effected in future as to have almost the whole iri-
fluence of the place in favor of such a school. Write me how you
would like to join me, and try to get on from Hudson and there-
abouts some firstrate abolitionist families with you. I do honestly
believe that our united exertions alone might soon, with the good
hand of our God upon us, effect it all.

This has been with me a favorite theme of reflection for years.
I think that a place which might be in some measure settled with
a view to such an object would be much more favorable to such
an undertaking than would any such place as Hudson, with all its
conflicting interests and feelings; and I do think such advantages
ought to be afforded the young blacks, whether they are all to be

Timmediately set free or not. Perhaps we might, under God, in
that way do more towards breaking their yoke effectually than
in any other. If the young blacks of our country could once be-
come enlightened, it would most assuredly operate on slavery like

^firing powder confined in rock, and all slaveholders know it well.
Witness their heaven-daring laws against teaching blacks. If once
the Christians in the free States would set to work in earnest in
teaching the blacks, the people of the slaveholding States would
find themselves constitutionally driven to set about the work of
emancipation immediately. The laws of this State are now such
that the inhabitants of any township may raise by a tax in aid of
the State school-fund any amount of money they may choose by
a vote, for the purpose of common schools, which any child may
have access to by application. If you will join me in this under-
taking, I will make with you any arrangement of our temporal
concerns that shall be fair. Our health is good, and our prospects
about business rather brightening.

Affectionately yours, John Brown.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 45

It will be noticed, as has heretofore been pointed out,' that
there is here a total absence of any belligerent intention
on the writer's part; he who afterwards became disgusted
with the Abolitionists because their propaganda involved talk
alone, and no violent physical action against slavery, was
planning, when nearly thirty-five, nothing more startling than
a school for blacks, confident in the belief that their educa-
tion in the North would shatter the whole system of slavery in
the South, and turning for aid exclusively to friends in his
former Ohio home. Again, he shows no knowledge of the pre-
judice in the North against teaching blacks which had resulted
in his native State in the suppression of schools for them in
New Haven in 1831, and in Canterbury in 1834. Throughout
his correspondence of these years, and later, there is little
to indicate that Brown was in touch with much of what was
going on in the nation. Indeed, as late as June 22, 1844, he
wrote to his family, "I am extremely ignorant at present of
miscellaneous subjects."' It is the recollection of the family,
however, that before this time they were called upon by their
father to take a solemn oath to do all in their power to abolish
slavery, after hearing from him of his purpose of attacking
the institution. Jason Brown fixes the d^te of this event at
1839, the place as Franklin, and those yho were party to it
as Mrs. Brown, a colored preacher, Fayette by name, and
the three sons, John, Jr., Jason and Owen. He specifies merely
that they were sworn "to do all in their power to abolish
slavery," and does not use the word " force." John Brown, Jr.,
writing to F. B. Sanborn in December, 1890, thus expressed
his opinion : *

"It is, of course, impossible for me to say when such idea and
plan first entered his [John Brown's] mind and became a purpose;
but I can say with certainty that he first informed his family that
he entertained such purpose while we were yet living in Franklin,
O. (now called Kent), and before he went to Virginia, in 1840, to
survey the lands which had been donated by Arthur Tappan to
Oberlin College; and this was certainly as early as 1839. The place
and the circumstances where he first informed us of that purpose
are as perfectly in my memory as any other event in my life. Fa-
ther, mother, Jason, Owen and I were, late in the evening, seated
around the fire in the open fire-place of the kitchen, in the old
Haymaker house where we then lived ; and there he first informed

46 JOHN BROWN

us of his determination to make war on slavery — not such war as
Mr. Garrison* informs us 'was equally the purpose of the non-
resistant abolitionists,' but war by force and arms. He said that
he had long entertained such a purpose — that he believed it his
duty to devote his life, if need be, to this object, which he madeus
fully to understand. After spending considerable time in setting
forth in most impressive language the hopeless condition of the
slave, he asked who of us were willing to make common cause with
him in doing all in our power to 'break the jaws of the wicked and
pluck the spoil out of his teeth,' naming each of us in succession,
Are you, Mary, John, Jason, and Owen? Receiving an affirmative
answer from each, he kneeled in prayer, and all did the same. This
posture in prayer impressed me greatly as it was the first time I
had ever known him to assume it. After prayer he asked us to raise
our right hands, and he then administered to us an oath, the exact
terms of which I cannot recall, but in substance it bound us to
secrecy and devotion to the purpose of fighting slavery by force
and arms to the extent of our ability. According to Jason's recol-
lections, Mr. Fayette, a colored theological student at Western
Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, was with us at the time but of this
I am not certain."

It must be noted here that in this letter John Brown, Jr.,
gives the date of the oath as 1839; in his lengthy affidavit in
the case of Gerrit Smith against the Chicago Tribune, he
gave the date as 1836, three years earlier, and in an account
given in Mr. Sanborn's book he placed it at 1837; three dis-
tinct times for the same event. It can, therefore, best be
stated as occurring before 1840.^ At this time, John Brown,
Jr., was in his nineteenth year, Jason about sixteen years
old, and Owen between fourteen and fifteen. The only tes-
timony as to an early project akin to that of the final raid,
available from any one else outside the family, is that of
George B. Delamater," who say^.vl' Having spent several days
and nights with Old John Brown^^lsvarious times between
1840 and 1844, I enjoyed his society and^ras made acquainted
with his views in regard to American sla-^ery and its rela-
tions at that time from various standpoints, and also with
the scheme which he had under consideration for freeing
persons held in bondage." Mr. Delamater at this period was
a mere stripling; it is an interesting contrast to his recollec-
tions that Mr. Foreman, in his long account of John Brown's

* Wendell Phillips Garrison, in The Preludes of Harper's Ferry.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 47

stay at Richmond from 1825 to 1835, makes no mention of
having heard of any deliberate project; yet he was much
older and more intimate with Brown than was Mr. Delamater,
who, in this earlier Richmond period, was only a school-boy.
That the subject was undoubtedly much in his mind prior
to this appears again from an anecdote related by General
Henry B. Carrington, and placed by him in the year 1836,
although probably occurring in 1838, when there is the first
definite record of John Brown's having been in Connecticut
after his school days. General Carrington thus tells this inci-
dent of his boyhood : '

"When I was a boy and Vient to school in Torrington, there came
into the school room one day a tall man, rather slender, with gray-
ish hair, who said to the boys : ' I want to ask you some questions
in geography. Where is Africa?' 'It is on the other side of the
ocean, of course,' said a boy. 'Why "of course," ' asked the man.
The boy could n't say why 'of course.' Then the man proceeded to
tell them something about Africa and the negroes, and the evil of
the slave trade, and the wrongs and sufferings of the slaves, and
then said, 'How many of you boys will agree to use your influence,
whatever it may be, against this great curse, when you grow up?'
They held up their hands. He then said that he was afraid that
some of them might forget it, and added, ' Now I want those who
are quite sure that they will not forget it, who will promise to use
their time and influence toward resisting this evil, to rise.' Another
boy and I stood up. Then this man put his hands on our heads
and said, 'Now may my Father in Heaven, who is your Father, and
who is the Father of the African; and Christ, who is my Master
and Saviour, and your Master and Saviour, and the Master and
Saviour of the African; and the Holy Spirit, which gives me strength
and comfort, when I need it, and will give you strength and com-
fort when you need it, and which gives strength and comfort to
the African, enable you to keep this resolution which you have
now taken.' And that man was John Brown."

Most important after that of the Brown family is the tes-
timony of Frederick Douglass, the colored leader, who states
in his autobiography « that Brown confided the Virginia plan
to him, without specifying Harper's Ferry or speaking of the
arsenal, "about the time" he began his newspaper enterprise
in Rochester in 1847, and among other details added that
Brown explained his frugal manner of living by his wish to
lay by money for this abolition project. Frederick Douglass

48 JOHN BROWN

visited Brown in his home in Springfield on this occasion.
" From this night spent with John Brown," said Mr. Douglass,
"... while I continued to write and speak against slavery,
I became all the same less hopeful of its peaceful abolition.
My utterances became more and more tinged by the color
of this man's strong impressions. Speaking at an anti-slavery
convention in Salem, Ohio, I expressed the apprehension that
slavery could only be destroyed by blood-shed, when I was
suddenly and sharply interrupted by my good old friend
Sojourner Truth with the question, 'Frederick, is God dead?'
'No,' I answered, 'and because God is not dead, slavery can
only end in blood.' "

If this testimony seems to show that the plan of using force
was then, in 1847, taking shape in Brown's mind, — it may
have been delayed in coming to earlier maturity by his bank-
ruptcy and financial distress, — there is nothing in John
Brown's letters or diary to indicate so early an all-ruling
plan of applying force to slavery as John Brown, Jr., records.
iT'is said that his father first conceived the idoa of using the
Allegheny Mountains as the scene for an armed attack on
slavery, and a means of running off freed slaves to the North,
when he surveyed the Oberlin lands.' But his letter to his
family from Ripley, Virginia, April 27, 1840,'" already cited,
is peaceable enough, and his hope of settling his family there
is hardly consistent with his anti-slavery policy of later years.
Indeed, while recording his pleasure that the residents of the
vicinity were more attractive people than he had thought,
he had nothing to say about the institution of slavery which
he then, for the first time, really beheld at close range. So
far as the evidence of contemporary documents goes, until
1840, at least, there is nothing to show that there was any-
thing more than a family agreement to oppose slavery, with-
out specification as to the precise method of assault.

The transformation of the peaceful tanner and shepherd
into a man burning to use arms upon an institution which
refused to yield to peaceful agitation would seem to have
taken place in the latter part of his fourth decade, as Mr.
Douglass testified. Gradually his plan took final shape. There
was nothing in the surroundings of pastoral Richfield or
Akron to suggest narrow defiles and mountainous passes

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 49

teeming with sharpshooters. But, little by little, visions of
this kind came into Brown's brain more and more as the years
passed, until in the early fifties his plan was clear to him in
its outlines, much as actually put into execution. The salient
idea was that mountains had throughout history been the
means of enabling a few brave souls, whether gladiators, or
slaves, or free men, Swiss, Italians, or Spaniards, or Circas-
sians, to defy and sometimes to defeat armies of their op-
pressors. Into the mountain fastnesses regular troops pene-
trated, it was thought, with difficulty, and the ranges thenv'
selves afforded an easy line of communication even through
a wholly hostile country. Moreover, mountains were just
the place to assemble bondmen and to give them arms with
which to fight for liberty. For the project was now far dif-
ferent from that John Brown described to his brother in 1834;
slavery, it appeared, was, after all, not to be undone by edu-
cating the negroes already freed, but by the sword of Gideon
and a band as carefully chosen as was his. Gradually the
practical shepherd felt his blood stirring within him, but not
until after removal to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1846,'
when he had the opportunity to come into closer knowledge
of the militant Boston Abolitionists, is there written evi-
dence of this. He had seen the Liberator in his father's home,
for Owen Brown early became a subscriber to this and other
vigorous anti-slavery journals. John Brown's children also
remember to have received the Liberator in Ohio, when it
was still a youthful publication, i' and later in North Elba.
The Tribune, too, as it attained fame under Greeley, was as
welcome a visitor to this home as to so many thousands of
others. Its approval of the doctrine of opposing slavery with
Sharp's rifles commended it particularly in the Kansas days
to John Brown, who was by nature unable to sympathize
with the Garrisonian doctrine of non-resistance to force,
although there are some who would believe Brown to have
been a non-resistant as late as 1830. They cite in support
of their contention a garbled anecdote, according to^ which
he permitted himself to be cowhided without resisting his
assailant's fury.^^ Brown's residence in Springfield gave him
the opportunity not only to attend anti-slavery meetings,
but also to meet many colored people; in the first written

50 JOHN BROWN

evidence of his growing aggressiveness towards slavery there
is reference to enhghtenment at the hands of Abby Kelley
Foster,* Garrison "and other really benevolent persons."
This curious production of Brown's bespeaks the influence
upon him of Franklin's writings; throughout, it is an admo-
nition to the negroes to avoid their besetting sins, an incen-
tive to thrift, frugality and solidarity, and it is written as if
from the pen of a black man. Sambo. Contributed in 1848
or 1849 to a little-known Abolition newspaper, The Ram's
Horn, published and edited by colored men in New York,
this essay denounces the negroes for their supineness in the
face of wrong, instead of their "nobly resisting" brutal ag-
gressions.f

But for all its denunciation of the negro's "tamely sub-
mitting to every species of indignity, contempt and wrong,"
it cannot be maintained that this satirical article indicated
that Brown had gone very far along the path toward an armed
attack on slavery, although started in that direction. Nor
does it appear from this that he had as yet reached the
conclusion that the New England Abolitionists were to be
shunned because they were all talk. In 1851, however, the
policy of armed resistance becomes much more clearly de-
veloped ; the man of war is now emerging from the chrysalis
of peace. On January 15 of that year there was organized in
Springfield a branch of the United States League of Gilead-
ites — the first and apparently the only one. It was Brown's
idea; he chose the title, and it was his first effort to organize
the colored people to defend themselves and advance their
interests. It was a practical application of the teachings-ef^
Sambo, and was inspired by the passage of the Fugitive
Slave Law, which made legal in the North the rendition of
negroes who had found their way to free States. The "Words
of Advice" for the Gileadites, "as written and recommended
by John Brown" and adopted as the principles of the new
organization, begin with the motto "Union is Strength,"

* "John Brown was strong for women's rights and women's suffrage. He
always went to hear Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley Foster, even though it cost
him considerable effort to reach the place where they spoke." — Annie Brown
Adams.

t See Appendix.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 51

and declare in the first sentence that "Nothing so charm^
the American people as personal bravery."" The object of
the Gileadites was not, however, to attack slavery on its
own territory, but to band the colored people together to re-
sist slave-catchers and make impossible the returning to the
South of a fugitive who had reached Northern soil. Brown
wrote :

"No jury can be found in the Northern States, that would con-
vict a man for defending his rights to the last extremity. This is
well understood by Southern Congressmen, who insisted that the
right of trial by jury should not be granted to the fugitive. Col-
ored people have more fast friends amongst the whites than they
suppose. . . . Just think of the money expended by individuals
in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think of the number
who have been mobbed and imprisoned on your account. Have
any of you seen the Branded Hand? Do you remember the names of
Lovejoy and Torrey? Should one of your number be arrested, you
must collect together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your
adversaries who are taking an active part against you. Let no
able-bodied man appear on the ground unequipped, or with his
weapons exposed to view; let that be understood beforehand. Your
plans must be known only to yourself, and with the understanding
that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to be guilty.
'Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early
from Mount Gilead.' (Judges, VH chap., 3 verse; Deut. XX Chap.
8 verse.) Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on condi-
tion of holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you
are ready; you will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first
blow be the signal for all to engage; and when engaged do not do
your work by halves; but make clean work with your enemies,
and be sure you meddle not with any others . . . Your enemies
will be slow to attack you after you have once done up the work
nicely. . . ."

All this has the characteristic ring of John Brown the
Kansas fighter, particularly the admonition to make "clean
work with your enemies." Here is the stern Puritan parent,
intolerant of childish fault, developed into a man urging not
only shedding the blood of one's enemies, but the making of
"clean work" of it, much as pirate captains advocated the
walking of the plank as a sanitarily satisfactory way of dis-
posing of one's captives. This advice, as will be seen later m
this narrative, recurs frequently in the days when the Round-
head was in the field at work. Certainly, when engaged,

52 JOHN BROWN

he always lived up to his doctrine of going at once to close
quarters with his enemy, after the manner of John Paul Jones.
The transformation of the practical shepherd was thus coming
on apace.

Characteristic, too, is Brown's suggestion in the "Words
of Advice," that a lasso might be "applied to a slave-catcher
for once with good effect." "Stand by one another, and by
your friends, while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged,
if you must, but tell no tales out of school," — this is another
solemn admonition which smacks of the Spanish Main, yet
accurately foreshadows his own conduct when overcome by
his enemies. Original is the hint to the colored people to
embroil their white friends in the event of trouble: "After
effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of
your most prominent and influential white friends with your
wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspi-
cion of being connected with you, and will compel them to
make a common cause with you, whether they would other-
wise live up to their profession or not. This would leave them
no choice in the matter." These "Words of Advice" were
followed by an agreement and nine resolutions which practi-
cally restate the agreement. This was signed by forty-four
colored men and women of Springfield. It is typical of other
documents John Brown drew up on, to him, serious occa-
sions, and is in his best style: "

AGREEMENT

As citizens of the United States of America, trusting in a just
and merciful God, whose spirit and all-powerful aid we humbly
implore, we will ever be true to the flag of our beloved country,
always acting under it. We, whose names are hereunto affixed,
do constitute ourselves a branch of the United States League of
Gileadites. We will provide ourselves at once with suitable imple-
ments, and will aid those who do not possess the means, if any
such are disposed to join us. We invite every colored person whose
heart is engaged for the performance of our business, whether male
or female, old or young. The duty of the aged, infirm, and young
members of the League shall be to give instant notice to all mem-
bers in case of an attack upon any of our people. We agree to
have no officers except a Treasurer and Secretary pro tern., until
after some trial of courage and talent of able-bodied members shall

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 53

enable us to elect officers from those who shall have rendered the
most important services. Nothing but wisdom and undaunted cour-
age, efficiency, and general good conduct shall in anyway influence
us in electing our officers.

It is not of record that any members of the Gileadites
actually took a hand in a slave-rescue "with suitable imple-
ments." There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the de-
termined Springfield wool- merchant, in drafting these reso-
lutions in his fifty-first year, meant them to contain advice
which may briefly be summed up as forcible resistance to the
officers of the law, and an admonition to shoot to kill on all
such occasions. As long as he was in Springfield, John Brown
continued to concern himself with these colored friends. On
November 28, 1850, just before he organized the Gileadites,
he wrote to his wife: '^ " j of course keep encouraging my
colored friends to 'trust in God and keep their powder dry.'
I did so today, at Thanksgiving meeting, publicly."

From the Gileadites to plans for guerrilla warfare was an
easy step. In his second memorandum-book, preserved in the
Boston Public Library, there is an entry which was probably
recorded early in 1855. It reads thus:

"Circassia has about 550,000
Switzerland 2,037,030
Guerilla warfare see Life of Lord Wellington Page 71 to Page 75
(Mina). See also Page 102 some valuable hints in same Book. See
also Page 196 some most important instructions to officers. See
also same Book Page 235 these words Deep and narrow defiles
where 300 men would suffice to check an army. See also Page 236
on top of Page."

The book in question is Joachim Hayward Stocqueler's
two-volume 'Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington,'
published in London in 1852, and the activity of the Spanish
guerrillas under their able leader Mina was what attracted
Brown's attention. The "most important instructions to
officers" related to discipline and cooking, and page 235 fur-
nished a description of the mountainous and broken topogra-
phy of Spain. Directly opposite the entry quoted above is a
list of Southern towns, with four Pennsylvania cities mixed in,
as if Brown were considering such strategic points as Little
Rock, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; San Antonio,

54 JOHN BROWN

Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; Augusta, Georgia, and others, in
an elaborate plan for assailing the slave-power and running
off its much cherished property. Some Ohio friends of Brown,
Colonel Daniel Woodruff, an officer of the War of 1812, his
son-in-law, Mr. Henry Myers and his daughter, according to
the recollections of the two latter (Colonel Woodruff having
died soon after), learned from John Brown the details of his
Virginia plan as early as the late fall of 1854 or the beginning
of 1855. i« According to Mr. Myers, who heard the discussion
between John Brown and his father-in-law, the former's ob-
ject in visiting Colonel Woodruff was to persuade him to join
in a raid on Harper's Ferry, to take place at that time, if
it could be organized. He had seen active military service,
and Brown wanted the aid of his practical experience. Dur-
ing his stay, which he spent in urgent endeavor to persuade
^ Colonel Woodruff, Brown detailed his whole scheme, so that
all the Woodruff household came to understand it. He spoke
of the evil days in Kansas, then existing, and he wished to
relieve Kansas and to retaliate by striking at another point.
He wanted to attack the arsenal at Harper's Ferry : first, to
frighten Virginia and detach it from the slave interest; second,
to capture the rifles to arm the slaves; and third, to destroy
the arsenal machinery, so that it could not be used to turn
out more arms for the perhaps long guerrilla war that might
follow; and to destroy whatever guns were already stored
Jthere that he could not carry away.

That this revelation of his plan is not improbable appears
from other testimony. In August, 1854, John Brown wrote
to his sons, who were then planning to combat slavery by
settling in Kansas as Free State men, that he could not join
them because he felt a call to duty in another section of the
country." Evidently, the practical shepherd now clearly real-
ized what was his greatest object in life and was devoting
himself to it. His daughter, Annie Brown Adams, says that
she first learned the plan of the raid the winter she was eleven
years old (in 1854) ; and then she heard of it as to take place
at Harper's Ferry. 1* Later, in hearing other people's stories,
she found other places mentioned. Salmon explained this to
her by saying that their father several times changed his
plans, and that he had spoken of them to various other people

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 55

at these different times. "I think I may say," writes Mrs.
Adams, "without any intention of boasting, that I knew
more about his plans than anyone else, or at least anyone
else who 'survived to tell the tale.' He always talked freely
to me of his plans, from the time he first explained them to
me, the winter before he went to Kansas, when I was eleven
years old. He would say as if for a sort of apology to himself,
perhaps, 'I know I can trust you. You never tell anything
you are told not to,' after talking with me of his affairs."

During all the North Elba period from 1849 to 1851, so
Miss Sarah Brown thinks, she and all the children knew
that a blow was to be struck at Harper's Ferry. She clearly
remembers how, when Harper's Ferry came into the lesson
at school, her heart hammered and she shivered as with cold.
Yet she cannot recall that any of them were ever cautioned
to keep silence as to this. She thinks they all understood
the necessity of secrecy as to all their father's plans so well,
that warnings were known to be superfluous. She clearly
recalls standing behind her father's chair and watching him
draw diagrams of log forts, explaining how the logs were to be
laid, how the roofs were to be made, and how trees were to
be felled without, and laid as obstacles to attacking parties.
This was to be in the mountains near Harper's Ferry, and her
father was making the pictures and explaining his plans to one
Epps, a negro neighbor, who was looking on, and whom her
father was endeavoring — vainly — to induce to join the raid-
ers. Her father was so ready to trust others with his plans, with
sublime faith in their ability to keep a secret, that his visit
to Colonel Woodruff would have been entirely in keeping. It
is related, too, that he confided in Thomas Thomas, a negro
porter in the employ of Perkins & Brown in Springfield,
soon after his arrival there in 1846," but there is no direct
confirmatory evidence of his having laid his plan before some
of the Gileadites. Thomas Thomas took no active interest in
Brown's plans, being neither conspicuous in the League, nor
a member of his employer's Chatham convention in 1858,
preceding the raid on Harper's Ferry.

As to the purposes behind the plan and the objects to be •
obtained, it is probable that they may have varied as the
years passed, precisely as did the details of the programme

56 JOHN BROWN

and the actual place of starting his revolt. Thus, while he
first thought of Harper's Ferry, as Mrs. Annie Brown Adams
testifies, 2" other places were at times discussed; even up to the
raid, it was thought by some of the Boston backers of Brown
that the place of striking the first blow would be some other
locality than Harper's Ferry," which, by its nearness to the
capital of the nation and its being on a railroad, was ren-
dered much less desirable for the purpose in hand than some
place nearer the Ohio boundary. So, too, the prime object
was at one time the terrorizing of the slaveholders and the
making of slaveholding less profitable, by reducing the value
of slaves along the border. Not until later was there thought
out a plan for capturing, controlling and governing a whole
section of the United States. Again, in the Kansas years, a
prime motive was to relieve the pro-slavery pressure upon
Kansas by attacking slavery elsewhere. At one time, as his
son Salmon points out, John Brown hoped to force a settle-
ment of the slavery question by embroiling both sections.
This was in line with his whole Kansas policy of inducing a
settlement by bringing armed pro-slavery and Free State forces
to close quarters, and letting them fight it out. After the
Kansas episode, John Brown planned agitation for the pur-
, pose of setting the South afire. The Southern leaders in Cpn-
'gress having continually threatened secessiori, John Brown
hoped to help them carry out their threat or force them into
it, saying that the "North would then whip the South back
into the Union without slavery." Salmon Brown declares
that he heard his father and John Brown, Jr., discuss this by
the hour, and insists that "the Harper's Ferry raid had that
idea behind it far more than any other," the biographers of
his father having failed heretofore to bring out this central
far-reaching idea to the extent it merits. ^^ But the main
motive was, after all, to come to close quarters with slavery,
and to try force where argument and peaceful agitation had
theretofore failed to break the slaves' chains. And so, shortly
before he reached the age of fifty, this unknown and incon-
,spicuous wool-merchant and cattle-raiser had fully resolved
to be the David to the Goliath of slavery. He entertained
no doubt that he could accomplish that end, if he could but
command the funds necessary for the purchase of arms.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 57

While all this metamorphosis of the man was going on,
John Brown's new business venture had really brought him
into smoother waters, even though it was not destined to be
lasting or a financial success. After tending the Perkins flocks
for two years, it was decided to establish a headquarters in
Massachusetts for the sale of the wool, and there followed
the residence in Springfield which meant so much for Brown's
development. It was in 1846 that he opened the office, and
the next year his family joined him there. Frederick Douglass,
after seeing the fine store of Perkins & Brown, was prepared
to find Brown's residence in Springfield similarly impressive.
"In fact," he wrote, ^^ "the house was neither commodious
nor elegant, nor its situation desirable. It was a small wooden
building, on a back street, in a neighborhood chiefly occupied
by laboring men and mechanics; respectable enough to be
sure, but not quite the place, I thought, where one would look
for the residence of a flourishing and successful merchant.
Plain as was the outside of this man's house, the inside was
plainer. Its furniture would have satisfied a Spartan. . . .
There was an air of plainness about it [the house] which almost
suggested destitution." The meal was "such as a man might
relish after following the plow all day, or performing a forced
march of a dozen miles over a rough road in frosty weather."
Everything in the home implied to Mr. Douglass "stern
truth, solid purpose, and rigid economy." "I was not long,"
he added, "in company with the master of this house before
I discovered that he was, indeed, the master of it, and was
likely to become mine too if I stayed long enough with him.
He fulfilled St. Paul's idea of the head of the family. His wife
believed in him, and his children observed him with reverence.
Whenever he spoke his words commanded earnest attention.
. . . Certainly I never felt myself in the presence of a stronger
religious influence than while in this man's house."

As for John Brown the man, he was then in his forty-eighth
year, without the stoop that a few years later made him seem
prematurely old. His attire, however simple, was always neat
and of good materials; in Ohio, the testimony is, he dressed
like a substantial farmer in the woolen suits of the time and
wore cowhide boots. Physically strong and sinewy, he was
not five feet eleven in height, with a disproportionately small

58 JOHN BROWN

head, an inflexible and stern mouth and a prominent chin.
His hair, already tinged with gray, was closely trimmed and
grew well over his forehead. But his bluish gray eyes were
what held and won people; they fairly shone when he talked.
Mr. Douglass remembers that they were "full of light and
fire." 24 His nose was somewhat prominent and of what is
known as the Roman type. With all, the face was vigorous,
shrewd and impressive. Once a visitor to the North Elba
homestead remarked to a family group: " I think your father
looks like an eagle." "Yes," replied Watson Brown, "or some
other carnivorous bird." ^^ But the comparison was not meant
to be unflattering; it was the keenness of the eagle's looks,
the sharp watchfulness of his glance, even with half-shut eyes,
that suggested the comparison. On the prairies, those who
rode with John Brown were struck with the range and the
alertness of his vision, from which nothing escaped, while
those who saw him in the cities noticed the long springing
step and apparent deep absorption in his own reflections.
Yet all agreed upon the impressiveness of John Brown's bear-
ing; even in later years, when his appearance was so rural as
to attract attention on the streets of Boston, the earnestness
of his face and the vigor of his form prevented any disposition
to ridicule.

The object of the establishment of Perkins & Brown's
office in Springfield was to classify wools for wool-growers, in
order that they might thus obtain a better value for their
product than had been the case up to that time, and to
sell it on a commission of two cents per pound. ^^ Having
warehouses, Perkins & Brown received large shipments of
wool from farmers known to them, and then by carefully
sorting the fleeces were able to approach manufacturers of
cashmere, broadcloth, jeans or satinette, with the wools of the
grade they desired. In the first Springfield letter-book of
the firm, into which were laboriously copied in long-hand all
its letters," the first epistle bears the date of June 23, 1846,
and is a tribute to John Brown's probity in that it notifies
Mr. Marvin Kent that, if he should send wool to the firm to
sell, the amount of the commissions earned would be used to
liquidate John Brown's old debts to himself and his father.
The times were not, however, propitious for the new enter-

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 59

prise. The Walker tariff was just being passed by Congress, and
the war with Mexico was on. The legislative uncertainty made
the wool market dull and unstable, and when the Walker bill
was signed, the price of Saxony wool, in which Perkins &
Brown were especially interested, dropped from seventy- five to
twenty-five cents. Perkins & Brown were, however, able to
start off by selling the splendid wool of their own flocks for the
good price of sixty-nine cents, and early in July, in a letter in
Brown's handwriting, they asserted that "we receive at this
place more of the first class of American wools than any other
house in the country." ^^ Many of the firm's letters are in
the handwriting of John Brown, Jr., who, having finished
an excellent schooling and being ready for business life, be-
came a clerk in the Springfield ofhce, in which Jason Brown
also served. By August 26, John Brown was able to report,
cheerfully, to the senior partner in Ohio, as follows:^' "We
are getting in wool rapidly, generally from 50 to 80 bales per
day. We are selling a little and have very frequent calls from
manufacturers. Musgrave paid up our note at the Agawam
[bank] yesterday so that I now have our name clear of any
paper in this country. . . . We have had a big wool-growers
meeting at Springfield ; Bishop Campbell presiding, in refer-
ence to sending wool hereafter to Europe."

This project of exporting wool to England and the Conti-
nent deeply interested Brown from the beginning of his
Springfield residence, particularly as he found himself, in the
fall of 1846, loaded up with other people's wool, unable to sell
it for them at fair figures, and quite unwilling to sacrifice it
at forced sales. On November 27, 1846, he wrote to a client'"
that he would have gone across the Atlantic with a quan-
tity of wool save for unforeseen hindrances. He had sent to
England in 1845, from Ohio, some fleeces "which received
unqualified praise both for condition and quality," and, as he
said in this letter, the firm was bent on encouraging exporta-
tion "and in giving character to American wools in Europe."
Indeed, the sale of their higher grades of wool to an English-
man for export on December 21, 1846, was all that saved
Perkins & Brown from a disastrous ending to their first
season's business. They were being hard pushed by those who
had sent the wool and were in need of money, and who could

6o JOHN BROWN

not understand why the firm had not been able to sell a single
pound of fine wool from July to December. Moreover, some
customers had just grievances, for the letter-book contams far
too many apologies for failure to acknowledge letters and
shipments and to make out accurate accounts, for so young
a firm. To one of the protestants, John Brown explained the
situation thus: "

" We have at last found out that some of the principal manu-
facturers are leagued together to break us down, as we have offered
them wool at their own price & they refuse to buy. ... We hope
every wool-grower in the country will be at Steubenville [Ohio]
2d Wednesday of Feb'y next, to hear statements about the wool
trade of a most interesting character. There is no difficulty in the
matter as we shall be abundantly able to show, if the farmers will
only be true to themselves. . . . Matters of more importance to
farmers will then be laid open, than what kind of Tarriff we are to
have. No sacrifise kneed be made, the only thing wanted is to get
the broad shouldered, & hard handed farmers to understand how
they have been imposed upon, & the whole matter will be cured
effectually."

At this convention Brown made his peace with the Ohio
wool-growers who had shipped to him, but he did not find a
means of checkmating the cloth manufacturers. He read to
the convention a report on the best mode of making wools
ready for market and kindred subjects. It was resolved that
better care should be taken in preparing and washing the
wools, that commission-house depots be appointed, East and
West, for the sale of wools, Perkins & Brown to be the East-
ern house, and a committee of five, of which John Brown was
one, was appointed to obtain a foreign market for American
wools." The wicked manufacturers continued, however, to
make trouble for the wool-growers and the commission house
of Perkins & Brown, whose eventual retirement from the
wool business is still laid at their doors. They did not wish
the wool-growers to organize and unite; but in all fairness to
the manufacturers, the final failure should as well be shared
by Perkins & Brown themselves.'' For, though the Spring-
field business continued in 1848 and 1849, as time passed it
was evident that John Brown, wholly lacking as he was in a
merchant's training, was not fitted for the work. He did not

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 6i

know how to trade, being far too rigid in his prices. He waited
to make them until he had all his wool sorted ; then, when
the prices were finally fixed, the manufacturers had bought
elsewhere. It is related ^^ that John Brown once declined
sixty cents a pound for the firm's own splendid Saxony fleeces
and insisted on shipping them to England for sale. The North-
ampton, Massachusetts, manufacturer who made the offer
bought this shipment in England, had it returned to Spring-
field, and showed it in triumph to John Brown as having cost
him in freight and all only fifty-two cents a pound, eight cents
less than he had first offered for it. Brown had apparently
put no restriction of price upon his London agent.

The idea of checkmating the manufacturers by sales abroad
continued to engross Brown, and he was finally able to carry
out his idea of a trip to Europe in 1849. He sailed August 15,
1849, by the steamer Cambria, arriving in London on the 27th,
on a journey which afterwards played a great part in his dis-
cussions of his military plans, for, aside from his business ven-
ture, he was by this time particularly anxious to study some
European fortifications. Finding on his arrival in London that
no sales could be effected until the middle of September, he
left for Paris on the 29th of August. Some of his first impres-
sions of England are thus set down in a letter to his son : ^^

"England is a fine country, so far as I have seen; but nothing
so very wonderful has yet appeared to me. Their farming and
stone-masonry are very good; cattle, generally more than middling
good. Horses, as seen at Liverpool and London, and through the
fine country betwixt these places, will bear no comparison with
those of our Northern states, as they average. I am here told that
I must go to the Park to see the fine horses of England, and I sup-
pose I must ; for the streets of London and Liverpool do not ex-
hibit half the display of fine horses as do those of our cities. But
what I judge from more than anything is the numerous breeding
mares and colts among the growers. Their hogs are generally good,
and mutton-sheep are almost everywhere as fat as pork."

Of the people and their institutions John Brown recorded
no impressions in the letters of this period now extant. Nor
is his entire Continental itinerary known. According to care-
fully saved hotel bills, '« he was in Calais on August 29 and 30,
and in Hamburg on September 5. Between these two dates

62 JOHN BROWN

he was in Paris, going thence to Brussels, where he visited
the battlefield of Waterloo on his way eastward. Various
surmises have been made as to where the other eleven or
twelve days between his visit to Hamburg and his return to
London were spent, but there is no documentary evidence
to prove the number of battlefields he visited, or that he
actually penetrated in so brief a time into Switzerland and
Northern Italy, as is sometimes alleged. As already stated,
this short trip to the Continent played a great part in his later
conversations, when he was called upon to defend the peculiar
features, from the military point of view, of his Harper's Ferry
plans. But obviously, no thorough military studies were pos-
sible in so scant a time as John Brown had in Europe.

He was in London again not later than September 17, when
an auction sale of some of his wool took place that set the seal
of disaster upon his business venture. The story was thus
related to his son by the traveller : ^'

London [Friday] 21st Sept 1849
Dear Son John

I have nothing new to write excepting that I [am] still well &
that on Monday last a lot of No. 2 wool was sold at the auction sale
at f 1 to 5 2i or in other words at from .26 to .29 cents pr lb. This
is a bad sale, & I have withdrawn all other wools from the public
sales. Since the other wools have been withdrawn I have discov-
ered a much greater interest amongst the buyers, & I am in hopes
to succeed better with the other wools but cannot say yet how it
will prove on the whole. I have a great deal of stupid, obstinate,
prejudice, to contend with as well as conflicting interests; both in
this country, & from the United States. I can only say that I have
exerted myself to the utmost; & that if I cannot effect a better sale
of the other wools privately; I shall start them back. I believe that
not a pound of the No 2 wool was bought for the United States,
& I learn that the general feeling is now; that it was quite under-
sold. About 150 Bales were sold. I regret that so many were put
up; but it cannot be helped now, for after wool has been subjected
to a London examination for a public sale it is very much injured
for selling again. The agent of Thirion Maillard & Co has been
looking at them today, & seemed highly pleased, said he had never
seen superior wools; & that he would see me again. We have not
yet talked about price. I now think I shall begin to think of home
quite in earnest at least in another fortnight possibly sooner. I do
not think the sale made a full test of the opperation.

Farewell Your Affectionate Father

John Brown

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 63

On October 5, Brown had again returned to London, after
visiting "Leeds, Wortley, Branley, Bradford & other places,"
and wrote thus to his son John, Jr. : ^^ " I expect to close up the
sale of wool here today, & to be on my way home One week
from today. . . . It is impossible to sell the wool for near its
value compared with other wools, but I expect to do better
some than in the first sale. I have at any rate done my utmost,
& can do no more. I do not expect to write again before I
leave. . . . My health is good but I have been in the midst
of sickness and death." During this interval, too, John Brown
visited in London the first of the long series of world's fairs,
and took advantage of it to exhibit some of the beautiful
Saxony wool he had brought with him. Long after his return
to his home, he received a bronze medal which the wool judges
awarded him for his exhibit. Here, too, must be recorded the
story early recorded by Redpath, of the attempt of some
English wool-merchants to play a trick on the rustic Yankee
farmer who came to them with wool to sell, by handing him
a sample and asking him what he would do with it: "His eyes
and fingers were so good that he had only to touch it to know
that it had not the minute hooks by which fibres of wool are
attached to each other. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'if you have
any machinery that will work up dogs' hair, I would advise
you to put this into it.' The jocose Briton had sheared a
poodle and brought the hair in his pocket, but the laugh
went against him ; and Captain Brown, in spite of some pecul-
iarities of dress and manner, soon won the respect of all he
met." It is also said that if given samples of Ohio and Ver-
mont wool, he could readily distinguish them when blind-
folded or in the dark.

Apparently he was able to despatch his business about as
he had hoped to, for he was in New York by the end of Octo-
ber, bringing back the wool that he was unable to sell. The
loss on this venture was probably as high as forty thousand
dollars. 33 Not unnaturally this added neither to the standing
nor the progress of the firm, and the skies were much dark-
ened for the partners. Even before the trip to Europe, they
had talked of giving up the business. Nearly a year later,
John Brown thus described an interview with his financial
backer and partner:"

64 JOHN BROWN

BuRGETTSTOWN Pa i2th April 1850

Dear Son John, & Wife ,, ^ o*- Mp=;s Fowlers

When at New York on my way here I called ^t Messjowiers
& Wells office, but you were absent. Mr. Pf^ms has made me a
visit here, & left for home yesterday. All well m Essex ^^en 1 lett
All well at Akron when he left one week smce 0"5 j^^JPf ^
o-PtViPr was one of the most cordial, & pleasant, I ever experiencea.
He metTfuU history of our difficulties, &f probable losses v^ithout
a frown on hi^ counte'^iance, or one sylable of reflection^ but on the
con?rIry with words of comfort, & encouragement. He is wholly
averse to any seperation of our business or interests, & gave me
?he uUestas^surince of his undiminished confidence, & personal
regard. He expressed a strong desire to have our flock of sheep
remain undivided to become the joint possession of our families
when we have gone ofT the stage. Such a meeting I had not dared
to expect, & I most heartily wish each of my family could have
shared in the comfort of it. Mr. Perkins has in this whole business
from first to last set an example worthy of a Philosopher, or ot a
Christian. I am meeting with a good deal of trouble from those
to whom we have over advanced but feel nerved to face any ditti-
culty while God continues me such a partner. Expect to be in Mew
York within 3 or 4 weeks.*

By November the firm's situation was much worse. "We
have trouble," wrote John Brown to his son on the 4th of
that month," "with Pickersgills, McDonald, Jones, Warren,
Burlington & Patterson & Ewing. These different claims
amount to $40 M ; [$40,000] & if lost will leave me nice &flat.
(This is in confidence.) Mr. Perkins bears the trouble a great
deal better than I had feared. I have been trying to collect
& am still trying." Just a month later, he informed his sons
that the prospect for the fine-wool business was improving,
"What burdens me most of all is the apprehension that Mr.
Perkins expects of me in the way of bringing matters to a
close what no living man can possibly bring about in a short
time, and that he is getting out of patience and becoming
distrustful. ... He is a most noble-spirited man, to whom
I feel most deeply indebted; and no amount of money \yould
atone to my feelings for the loss of confidence and cordiality
on his part." That this loss did not come to pass is attested
by a letter from Mr. Perkins's son, George T. Perkins, who
writes :t "My father, Simon Perkins, was associated with Mr.

* Signature missing.

t To the author, from Akron, Ohio, December 26, 1908.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 65

Brown in business for a number of years, and always regarded
him as thoroughly honest and honorable in all his relations
with him. Mr. Brown was, however, so thoroughly imprac-
tical in his business management, as he was in almost every-
thing else, that the business was not a success and was dis-
continued. Their relations were afterwards friendly." On
the other side, the Browns felt that too much responsibility
had been put upon their father. While most successful as a
railroad man, Mr. Perkins was not as well fitted by experience
and aptitude for the wool business. But despite John Brown's
failures, he gave him one chance after another. "John Brown
was, however, entirely obstinate, insisted always on having
his own way, and at last Mr. Perkins broke the connection." "
The senior partner did not, moreover, share the junior's antip-
athy to slavery.

The final winding up of the firm's affairs lasted for some
years, because of prolonged litigation growing out of the
trouble with some of the houses and customers John Brown
mentioned. Against one of them, Warren, his indignation
was never checked. As late as April 16, 1858, he warned his
family, when purchasing land from his daughter and son-in-
law, against the possibility of trouble from creditors of Per-
kins & Brown : *^

" Since I wrote you, I have thought it possible; though not prob-
able ; that some persons might be disposed to hunt for any property
I may be supposed to possess, on account of liabilities I incurred
while concerned with Mr. Perkins. Such claims I ought not to pay
if I had ever so much given me; for my service in Kansas. Most of
you know that I gave up all I then had to Mr. Perkins while with
him. ... I also think that . . . all the family had better decline
saying anything about their land matters. Should any disturbance
ever be made it will most likely come directly or indirectly through
a scoundrel by the name of Warren who defrauded Mr. Perkins
and I out of several thousand dollars."

The trial of the Perkins & Brown suit against Warren took
place in Troy, New York, late in January, 1852; from a re-
port of John Brown to Mr. Perkins on the 26th of January,^*
it looked as if the suit were going in the firm's favor. He did
obtain a verdict in this lower court, only to have it appealed
to a higher court, with the result, according to John Brown,

66 JOHN BROWN

that Warren was successful in his attempt to defraud the
firm. A more serious suit was one brought against Perkins
& Brown for no less than sixty thousand dollars damages,
for breach of contract in supplying wool of certain grades
to the Burlington Mills Company of Burlington, Vermont.^ It
finally came to trial January 14, 1853, and after progressing
somewhat it was settled out of court, his counsel deeming
it wiser to compromise than to face a jury.^* There were still
other suits brought by or against the firm to vex John Brown
during these years 1850 to 1854, and to add by their costli-
ness and tedious delays to the financial losses. This was the
unfortunate wind-up to John Brown's career as a wool-mer-
chant. Thereafter he lived first on the products of his farm-
ing in Ohio or in the Adirondacks, and then on gifts made to
maintain him as a guerrilla leader in Kansas, or as a prospective
invader of Virginia. From August, 1856, when he first re-
turned from Kansas, until October, 1859, he was thus main-
tained, without a regular business or regular labor of any
kind, while part of his family obtained a penurious living
in the Adirondacks, and the grown sons shared their father's
poverty and hardships in Kansas or worked and farmed at
intervals in Ohio, until the final disaster at Harper's Ferry.
Although unable to impress others with his fitness as a busi-
ness man, when he finally abandoned the career of a mer-
chant for that of a warrior against slavery, he had so little
difficulty in convincing friends and acquaintances of his abil-
ity, usefulness and sagacity as a guerrilla chief and leader of
a slave revolt, that he readily obtained thousands of dollars to
maintain him and his followers during at least three years of
their warring upon the South's cherished ownership of human
property.

It is only just to add that, while the financial losses of
Perkins & Brown's mercantile business were heavy, Mr. Per-
kins was not only willing to continue in the farming and
sheep-raising part of it with Brown, but insisted on it until
well into the spring of 1854. The last year of this phase of
their joint enterprise was "quite successful." "We have
great reason to be thankful," wrpte John Brown in February,
" that we have had so prosperous a year, and have terminated
our connection with Mr. Perkins so comfortably and on such

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 67

friendly terms." *« Early in April, 1854, he again wrote: "I
had a most comfortable time settling last year's business and
dividing with Mr. Perkins and have to say of his dealings
with me that he has shown himself to be every inch a gen-
tleman."" The only drawback, in John Brown's mind, was
his inability to move his family back to North Elba. This he
had to put off for another year, during which he rented and
worked three farms near Akron, meanwhile turning every-
thing into cash that he could in preparation for the final
settlement in his new home in the Adirondacks.

For John Brown was content to stay neither in Akron nor
anywhere else in Ohio. The residence of his family in Spring-
field had lasted, all told, but two years, from 1847 to 1849;
then the restlessness of his nature dictated another move.
While in Springfield he occupied the house at number 31
Franklin Street, where Frederick Douglass found him, and in
which his daughter Ellen was born on May 20, 1848, only to
die a year later in her sorely tried father's arms. Still another
child, an infant son, he was yet to lose, — the seventh of the
thirteen children of his second marriage to die in childhood,
while two more were destined to perish at Harper's Ferry
before his eyes. It is still remembered that the parlor of this
Springfield house was not furnished, that the money it would
cost might be given to fugitive slaves." Indeed, Springfield
still abounds in anecdotes of the wool-dealer in whom, at the
time of his residence there, no one saw any signs of greatness.
The best known one concerns his attempt to prove that the
hypnotism practised by La Roy Sunderland, a well-known
hypnotist of this period, 1848 or 1849, was a fraud. So many
garbled versions of this story have appeared from time to
time that it is best to give it in Mr. Sunderland's own words,
as he described it on December 9, 1859:*'

"His conduct in one of my lectures on Pathetism, in Springfield,
Mass., some twelve years since, has been referred to in the papers,
lately. That occasion offered a grand opportunity for the exhibi-
tion of his real character, as, at that time, he had not engaged in
the defence of Kansas, and he had had no personal encounters
with Slavery. He had witnessed the surgical operation performed
on a lady whom I had rendered insensible to pain, as she alleged,
by Pathetism. This, with the other phenoniena which he witnessed
in my lectures, was beyond his comprehension ; and so he arose one

68 JOHN BROWN

evening, and pronounced my lectures a humbug, and he offered to
prove it, if I would only allow him to come upon my platform,
and test the consciousness of one of my patients. To this proposal
I consented, on two conditions, namely, that his tests should not
endanger the health of my patient; and this to be determmed by
the physicians of the town; and secondly, that Brown_ himself
should submit to the same processes which he should inflict upon
the entranced lady. To this he readily agreed, although it was
quite evident that when he at first proposed his test he had no idea
of going through with it himself. He had consulted a physician for a
process which should, beyond all doubt, demonstrate the conscious-
ness of pain, if any such consciousness existed in the lady who was
entranced. And so the next night. Brown and his physicians were
on hand, with a vial of concentrated ammonia and a quantity (g. s.)
oi dolichos pruriens (cowhage). This 'cow itch,' as it is sometimes
called, is the sharp hair of a plant, and when applied to the skin, it acts
mechanically for a long time, tormenting the sufferer like so many
thistles or needles being constantly thrust into the nerves. No one,
I am sure, would willingly consent to suffer the application of cow-
hage to his body more than once. Brown bore it like a hero. But,
then, he had the advantage of the entranced lady — the skin of his
neck looking like sole leather; it was tanned by the sun, and looked
as if it was impervious. Not so, however, when the ammonia was
held to his nose; for then, by a sudden jerk of his head, it became
manifest that he could not, by his own volition, screw up his nervous
system to endure what I had rendered a timid lady able to bear
without any manifestation of pain. The infliction upon Brown was
a terrible one, for he confessed, three days afterwards, that he had
not been able to sleep at all since the cowhage was rubbed into his
neck. In submitting himself to that test, the audience declared him
'foolhardy,' as it proved nothing against the genuineness of my
experiments. It would not follow, that because he could endure
an extraordinary amount of physical pain, therefore another per-
son could do the same. The degree of courage manifested by
John Brown made him the extraordinary man he was. . . ."

/ The church Brown attended while in Springfield was natu-
rally the Zion Methodist, for it was formed by dissenters from
an older church because of their anti-slavery views. John
Brown found also a congenial friend in a Mr. Conkling, a
clergyman, who later became estranged from his congregation
by reason of his Abolition opinions.'" While John Brown
himself never faltered in his religious faith, the backsliding
of his sons disturbed him not a little, so that he wrote to them
a number of pathetically earnest letters, endeavoring to recall
them to the ways of godliness. It was characteristic of him

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 69

that, strong as was his nature and intense as was his belief
in the orthodox Congregational faith, this difference of reli-
gious conviction never interfered with the affection which
existed between father and sons. To some of his children he
addressed the following letter on this subject while in Troy,
New York: 51

Troy, N. Y., 23 Jan. 1852 ;
Dear Children :

I returned here on the evening of the 12th inst. and left Akron
on the 14th, the date of your letter to John. I was very glad to
hear from you again in that way, not having received anything from
you while at home. I left all in usual health and as comfortable as
could be expected; but am afflicted with you on account of yo>M"
little Boy. Hope to hear by return mail that you are all well. As
in this trouble you are only tasteing of a cup I have had to drink of
deeply, and very often ; I need not tell how fully I can sympathize
with you in your anxiety. My attachments to this world have been
very strong, and Divine Providence has been cutting me loose one
bond after another, up to the present time, but notwithstanding
I have so much to remind me that all ties must soon be severed ; I
am still clinging like those who have hardly taken a single lesson. I
really hope some of my family may understand that this world is
not the home of man; and act in accordance. Why may I not hope
this of you? When I look forward as regards the religious prospects
of my numerous family (the most of them) I am forced to say, and
to feel too ; that I have little, very little to cheer. That this should
be so, is I perfectly well understand, the legitimate fruit of my own
planting; and that only increases my punishment. Some ten or
twelve years ago I was cheered with the belief that my elder chil-
dren had chosen the Lord to be their God; and I valued much on
their influence and example in attoning for my deficiency and bad
example with the younger children. But, where are we now? Sev-
eral have gone to where neither a good or a bad example from me
will better their condition or prospects, or make them the worse.
The younger part of my children seem to be far less thoughtful and
disposed to reflection than were my older children at their age. I
will not dwell longer on this distressing subject but only say that
so far as I have gone; it is from no disposition to reflect on anyone
but myself. I think I can clearly discover where I wandered from
the Road. How to now get on it with my family is beyond my abil-
ity to see ; or my courage to hope. God grant you thorough conver-
sion from sin, and full purpose of heart to continue steadfast in his
ways through the very short season of trial you will have to pass. /

How long we shall continue here is beyond our ability to foresee,
but think it very probable that if you write us by return mail we
shall get your letter. Something may possibly happen that may

70 JOHN BROWN

enable us, or one of us, to go and see you but do not look for us. I
should feel it a great privilege if I could. We seem to be getting
along well with our business, so far ; but progress miserably slow.
My journeys back and forth this winter have been very tedious.
If you find it difficult for you to pay for Douglas paper, I wish you
would let me know as I know I took some liberty in ordering it con-
tinued. You have been very kind in helping me and I do not mean
to make myself a burden.

Your Affectionate Father

John Brown.

On the 6th of August of the same year he again took up the
religious question with his son John in this fashion : ^^

Akron, Ohio 6th Aug 1852

Dear Son John

One word in regard to the,religious belief of yourself, & the ideas
of several of my children.-^y affections are too deep rooted to be
alienated from them, but 'my Grey Hairs must go down to the grave
in sorrow,' unless the 'true God' forgive their denyal, & rejection
of him, & open their Eyes. I am perfectly conscious that their ' Eyes
are blinded' to the real Truth, & minds prejudiced by Hearts un-
reconciled to their maker & judge; & that they have no right appre-
ciation of his true character, nor of their Own. 'A deceived Heart
hath turned them aside.' That God in infinite mercy for Christs
sake may grant to you & Wealthy, & to my other Children 'Eyes
to see ' is the most earnest and constant prayer of your Affectionate
Father

John Brown.

Just a year later, John Brown returned to the charge and
spent a month writing a letter of pamphlet length, mostly
composed of Scriptural quotations strung together.*' "I do
notfeel 'estranged from my children,'" hewrote, "but Icannot
flatter them, nor cry peace when there is no peace." He was
particularly pained because, as he said of his younger sons:
"After thorough and candid investigation they have discovered
the Bible to be all a fiction ! Shall I add that a letter received
from you sometime since gave me little else than pain and
sorrow? 'The righteous shall hold on his way:' 'By and by
\ he is offended.' "

It was his all-impelling desire to help the colored people
that led him early to plan for the removal of his family to the
Adirondacks. Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, had offered to give,

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 71

on August I, 1846, no less than one hundred and twenty
thousand acres of land of his vast patrimony in northern
New York to worthy colored people, whom he aided in many
other ways as well." By April 8, 1848, John Brown had fully
decided to settle his family in the midst of the negro colonists,
in order to aid them by example and precept. He later visited
his brother-in-law, Orson Day, who was then living in White-
hall, New York, and from Mr. Day's home went on into the
Adirondack wilderness as far as the little negro settlement
of North Elba, where he became convinced that this was the
place for him to settle. He was at once charmed with the
superb scenery which has made this region of late such a
highly prized summer resort. The great mountains appealed
irresistibly to him, and the negro colony offered an opportu-
nity for training men in the armed warfare against slavery
which was now taking shape in his mind. Gerrit Smith, whom
Brown had visited on April 8, 1848, before seeing North Elba,
was greatly pleased at the prospect of having so sturdy and
experienced a farmer settle on his land, and became forthwith
a warm friend of his visitor from Springfield." Thus began a
relationship of enormous value to John Brown as the years
passed, without which it is by no means certain that he could
have obtained the "greatest or principal object" of his life to
the extent he did. No one in the North was more earnest in
his opposition to slavery than Gerrit Smith, and none could
reinforce their opinions with such princely generosity, or gave
as readily and as unselfishly. Chosen a member of Congress
in 1852, as an independent candidate, Gerrit Smith had long
been no mean figure in State politics. Indeed, in commenting
on his going to Congress, Horace Greeley thus described Mr.
Smith to his readers :'« "We are heartily glad that Gerrit
Smith is going to Washington. He is an honest, brave, kind-
hearted Christian philanthropist, whose religion is not put
aside with his Sunday cloak, but lasts him clear through the
week. We think him very wrong in some of his notions of
political economy, and quite mistaken in his ideas that the
Constitution is inimical to slavery, and that injustice cannot
be legalized ; but we heartily wish more such great, pure, loving
souls could find their way into Congress. He will find his seat
there anything but comfortable, but his presence there will do

72 JOHN BROWN

good, and the country will know him better and esteem him
more highly than it has yet done." Of this philanthropist
Brown purchased several farms, paying for them as rapidly as
his circumstances permitted.

The first removal of his family to North Elba or Timbucto,
as it was called in its early days, occurred in the spring of 1849,
the year of his European trip. As there was no home on his
land and he could not himself reside much in North Elba,
because of the necessity of carrying on the business in Spring-
field, John Brown hired for two years the farm of a Mr. Flan-
ders, on the road from Keene to Lake Placid." It had a good
barn on it, but only a tiny one-story house. " It is small," said
Brown to his family, "but the main thing is all keep good
natured." Some fine Devon cattle bought in Connecticut
were driven to the new home by three sons, Owen, Watson and
Salmon, and with these animals Brown won, in September,
1850, a prize at the Essex County Fair by an exhibition of cat-
tle which, according to the annual report of the exhibition so-
ciety in control, "attracted great attention and added much
to the interest of the fair." ** He was able, also, to buy an ex-
cellent pair of horses; the driver, Thomas Jefferson, a colored
man, who at the same time moved his family from Troy to
North Elba, was in Brown's employ until the first stay in this
bleak mountain home came to an end. That Brown felt deeply
his responsibility towards his negro neighbors appears from
the following extract from a letter, one of many written to
Willis A. Hodges, who was likewise active in settling negroes
on the Smith lands : ^'

Springfield, Mass. January 22, 1849.

Friend Hodges — Dear Sir: Yours of the nth January reached
me a day or two since. We are all glad to hear from you again and
that you were getting along well with the exception of your own
ill health. We hope to hear better news from you in regard to that
the next we get from you. . . .

Say to my colored friends with you that they will be no losers by
keeping their patience a little about building lots. They can busy
themselves in cutting plenty of hard wood and in getting any work
they can find until spring, and they need not fear getting too much
wood provided. Do not let anyone forget the vast importance of
sustaining the very best character for honesty, truth, industry and
faithfulness. I hope every one will be determined to not merely

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 73

conduct as well as the whites, but to set them an example in all
things. I am much pleased that your nephew has concluded to hang
on like a man.
With my best wishes for every one, I remain.

Yours in truth

John Brown

P. S. I hear that all are getting through the winter middling well
at Timbucto, for which I would praise the Lord. J. B.

The original settlers were not particularly pleased at the
arrival of so many colored people, and were reluctant at first
to supply them with provisions, charging, whep they did
so, exorbitant prices. So rapidly were the new arrivals'
means exhausted that there was some danger of famine. When
John Brown came on the scene, he at once defended them
against those who sought to injure them, saving to one col-
ored man the farm of which he was being cheated. Seeing
their destitution, he sought in every way to provide work
for them, and on each Sabbath when he was there, he called
the negroes together for instruction in the Scriptures. On
October 25, 1848, before he had moved to North Elba, he
bought five barrels of pork and five of flour, and shipped
them to Mr. Hodges; the contents of at least four of these
barrels were distributed among the needy colored at Tim-
bucto."" But even with all of the supervision and aid John
Brown and Hodges gave, these settlements were not a success.
Beautiful as the region was and is, it is not a farming coun-
try. To live required the most arduous labor in the brief
summer season. There were few tourists to help out the set-
tlers' income, and the cold, desolate and bleak winters bore
heavily upon all, but particularly upon the negroes, many of
whom were there by virtue of their having fled from slavery
in the warm Southern States, where they had known hitherto
no stimulus to labor save the lash. There were good common
schools, and a church at which, in summer, visiting ministers
of note preached." But with all that. North Elba was a dreary
and an inaccessible place, particularly in winter. On one occa-
sion, strong as he was, John Brown nearly lost his life in the
deep snow in endeavoring to walk in from Keene. "Before he
came within several miles of home," so his daughter Ruth re-
membered the story,^'' "he got so tired and lame that he had to

74 JOHN BROWN

sit down in the road. The snow was very deep and the road but
little trodden. He got up again after a little while, went on as
far as he could, and sat down once more. He walked a long
distance in that way, and at last lay down with fatigue, in the
deep snow beside the path, and thought he should get chilled
there and die. While lying so, a man passed him on foot, but
did not notice him. Father guessed the man thought he was
drunk, or else did not see him. He lay there and rested a while
and then started on again, though in great pain, and made out
to reach the first house, Robert Scott's. . . ."

Shortly after the Brown family moved into the Flanders
house at North Elba, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., of Boston, and
two friends came to their home, June 27, 1849, in a state
of utter exhaustion, having lost their way in the woods and
been for twenty-four hours without food. They were kindly
received and cared for. Fortunately, Mr. Dana kept an exten-
sive diary, which enabled him in after years to publish the fol-
lowing account from it of his impressions of the Brown family
in the Adirondacks : "

"The place belonged to a man named Brown, originally from
Berkshire in Massachusetts, a thin, sinewy, hard-favored, clear-
headed, honest-minded man, who had spent all his days as a frontier
farmer. On conversing with him, we found him well informed on
most subjects, especially in the natural sciences. He had books,
and had evidently made a diligent use of them. Having acquired
some property, he was able to keep a good farm, and had confess-
edly the best cattle and best farming utensils for miles around.
His wife looked superior to the poor place they lived in, which was a
cabin, with only four rooms. She appeared to be out of health. He
seemed to have an unlimited family of children, from a cheerful,
nice healthy woman of twenty or so, and a full sized red-haired son,
who seemed to be foreman of the farm, through every grade of boy
and girl to a couple that could hardly speak plain. . . . June 2g,
Friday — After breakfast, started for home. . . . We stopped at
the Browns' cabin on our way, and took affectionate leave of the
family that had shown us so much kindness. We found them at
breakfast, in the patriarchal style. Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their
large family of children with the hired men and women, including
three negroes, all at the table together. Their meal was neat,
substantial, and wholesome."

John Brown was at North Elba in January, 1851, soon after
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which stirred him to

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 75

the depths and had just led him to organize his Springfield
Gileadites. He at once went around among his colored friends
who were fugitives and urged them to resist the law at all costs.
Men and women, he declared, should arm themselves and re-
fuse to be taken alive. He told his children of this wicked bill,
and commanded them to join in resisting any attempt that
might be made to drag back into Southern chains their neigh-
bors who had been slaves, and to give no thought to possible
fines and imprisonment. "Our faithful boy, Cyrus," wrote
Mrs. Ruth Brown Thompson afterwards, "was one of that
class and it aroused our feelings so that we would all have
defended him, if the women folks had had to resort to hot
water. Father said ' Their cup of iniquity is almost full.' "

The reasons for John Brown's abandonment of North Elba
in 1851, after only two years there, were the burden of the law-
suits of Perkins & Brown, which kept him travelling about
from one place to another, and the necessity of continuing in
partnership with Mr. Perkins in the farming and sheep-raising
side of their business. It was in March, 1851, that he again
moved his family, now so accustomed to shifting its domicile,
back to Akron, the sons driving overland the prize Devon cat-
tle." As we have seen, the partnership with Mr. Perkins could
not be terminated as quickly thereafter as John Brown had
hoped, and when it was, he was compelled to work the three
hired farms for another year before he had accumulated suffi-
cient money to move back to North Elba and to make possible
his venture to Kansas. Throughout 1854 he was busily plan-
ning for his removal to North Elba and for the purchase of an-
other small farm there. The record-breaking drought of 1854
ruined many farmers in Ohio, but he fared much better, accord-
ing to a letter to his children of August 24, 1854, than most
people. His two sons, Jason and Owen, were living on a large
farm belonging to Mr. Perkins near Tallmadge; they with
John Brown, Jr., had, as already stated, made up their minds
to seek new homes in Kansas, in order to help stem the slave-
power which, with the opening of that Territory by the Kan-
sas and Nebraska act of May 30, 1854, was now seeking to
make Kansas its own. On February 13, 1855, John Brown
felt certain that he could get off to North Elba with his
immediate family in March ; to accomplish this purpose he

76 JOHN BROWN

was willing, if necessary, to sacrifice some of his Devon cat-
tle.^5 Not until June, 1855, however, was he able to make the
move:

RocKFORD III 4th June 1855

Dear Children . . , , -^t. . ,

I write just to say that I have finally sold my cattle without mak-
ing much sacrifise; & expect to be on the way home Tomorrow.
Oliver expects to remain behind & go to Kansas. After I get home
I expect to set out with the family for North Elba as soon as we
can get ready: & we may possibly get off this Week; but hardly
think we can. I have heard nothing further as yet from the Boys
at Kansas All were well at home a few days since.

Your Affectionate Father

John Brown"

When he and his charges finally arrived at North Elba, they
moved into an unplastered four-room house, the rudest kind
of a pioneer home, built for him by his son-in-law, Henry
Thompson, who had married his daughter Ruth. Here the
family still lived when the disaster at Harper's Ferry deprived
it of its head and two of his most promising sons. But though
John Brown was so attracted by North Elba as to buy three
farms there," and though the very pioneering aspect of the
new life appealed to him, his restlessness left him no peace.
He was now ready to abandon the field to which in the year
before he had felt himself committed to operate, and to follow
his sons to Kansas. So strong was the call to duty there that
he was impelled to leave everything at North Elba, — the un-
completed house, the newly arrived family with no fixed means
of support and the severest of winter climates to contend with,
his activity among his colored neighbors, and his still unpaid
debts in Ohio and elsewhere. Besides his sons, Owen, Oliver,
Salmon, Frederick, Jason and John Brown, Jr., Henry Thomp-
son, too, yielded to the desire to aid in carving out with axe
and rifle Kansas's destiny. There remained at North Elba
of the grown sons only Watson, then in his twentieth year, to
aid their brave mother and home-keeper. But she was quite
ready to fight cold and privation, if thereby her husband and
sons could live up to what they as truly considered the call of
duty as did their Revolutionary ancestor, who gave up his life
in New York City, the appeal to arms in 1777.

HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL OBJECT 77

Thenceforth John Brown could give free rein to his Wander-
lust; the shackles of business Hfe dropped from him. He was
now bowed and rapidly turning gray ; to every one's lips the ad-
jective " old " leaped as they saw him. But his was not the age
of senility, nor of weariness with life ; nor were the lines of care
due solely to family and business anxieties, or the hard labor of
the fields. They were rather the marks of the fires consuming
within; of the indomitable purpose that was the mainspring of
every action; of a life devoted, a spirit inspired. Emancipa-
tion from the counter and the harrow came joyfully to him at
the time of life when most men begin to long for rest and the
repose of a quiet, well-ordered home. Thenceforth he was free
to move where he pleased, to devote every thought to his bat-
tle with the slave-power he staggered, which then knew no-
thing of his existence.

The metamorphosis was now complete. The staid, sombre
merchant and patriarchal family-head was ready to become
Captain John Brown of Osawatomie, at the mere mention of
whose name Border Ruffians and swashbuckling adherents
of the institution of slavery trembled and often fled. Kansas
gave John Brown the opportunity to test himself as a guerrilla-
leader for which he had longed; for no other purpose did he
proceed to the Territory ; to become a settler there, as he had
hoped to in Virginia in 1840, was furthest from his thoughts.
Leadership came readily to him; to those who fell under his
sway, it seemed as natural that he should become the com-
mander as that there should be a President in Washington.
Even those who walked not in his ways respected him as a
captain of grim determination, of iron will. Of no particular
distinction as an executive in his business enterprises, he had
somehow or other acquired in the home circle, in the marts
of trade, in the quiet fields and woods, that something which
makes some men as inevitably leaders as others are predes-
tined to become satellites or lieutenants of those of stronger
will, greater imagination and clearer prevision. Imagination
our wool-merchant had, even if its range was not great; for
when the hour came to act, he was on hand with his nerves
under control, his head clear, his courage unbounded, ready
to meet emergencies. Indeed, one may ask if he really had
nerves, so complete was their subordination to the ego, to the

78 JOHN BROWN

will that forced its own way, either when it was a matter of
convincing rebellious followers of the wisdom of the plan they
revolted against, or of standing steadily on the scaffold trap-
door to eternity. Yet this man was the product of piping
times of peace; of the counting-room and the petty life of the
rural follower of a trade, which are so widely supposed to
weaken the fibre, attenuate the blood and develop the craven.
The secret of this riddle lies not merely in the Puritan inher-
itances of John Brown, nor in his iron will, nor in his ability
to visualize himself and his men in a mountain stronghold of
the Alleghenies. To all these powers of an intense nature were
added the driving force of a mighty and unselfish purpose,
and the readiness to devote life itself to the welfare of others.
However one may dislike the methods he adopted or the
views he held, here is, after all, the explanation of the forging
of this rough, natural leader of men. "Why," said one of his
abolition co-workers, who believed in very different means
of attacking slavery, "it is the best investment for the soul's
welfare possible to take hold of something that is righteous
but unpopular. . . . It teaches us to know ourselves, to know
what we are relying on, whether we love the praise of men,
or the praise of God." The essentially ennobling feature of
John Brown's career, that which enabled him to draw men
to him as if by a magnet, was his willingness to suffer for
others, — in short, the straightforward unselfishness of the
man.

As John Brown left for Kansas, he turned once more
to the members of his family and said: "If it is so painful
for us to part with the hope of meeting again, how of poor
slaves?"^*

CHAPTER III
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD

" If you or any of my family are disposed to go to Kansas or
Nebraska, with a view to help defeat Satan and his legions in
that direction, I have not a word to say ; but I feel committed
to operate in another part of the field. If I were not so com-
mitted, I would be on my way this fall," — thus it was that
John Brown wrote to his son John on August 21, 1854.1 The
latter and his brothers had, as we have seen, grown restless
in Ohio, where they then resided with but indifferent prospects
for material success, particularly because of the great damage
done by the drought of 1854; ^ and the emigration of their
uncle, the Rev. Samuel Lyle Adair, to Osawatomie, Kansas,
had determined their settling in that locality.' To Kansas
they would, however, have gone had he not preceded them,
for their inherited antipathy to slavery made them earnest
observers of the exciting political conditions resulting from
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which left to the settlers them-
selves the decision whether slavery should or should not exist
within those Territories. This abrogation of the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of
36° 30' north latitude, roused its enemies in the North to
unwonted efforts. If, they reasoned, the South could thus
abrogate a sacred agreement which had for thirty-four years
prevented the growth of slavery toward the North, it might
within a few years permit the extension of its favorite institu-
tion to still other portions of the original Louisiana purchase
acquired from France in 1803. Only seven years had then
elapsed since the unholy war with Mexico had made possible
the annexation of the great State of Texas and the other Terri-
tories acquired by the peace treaty of 1848. That tremendous
expansion to the south and southwest would, it was thought,
satisfy the slaveholders for years to come. But the wasteful-
ness and short-sightedness of their methods of cotton-culture,
the uneconomic and shiftless character of slave labor itself,
made the appetite for virgin lands insatiable.

8o JOHN BROWN

Moreover, Southern leaders were blind neither to the danger
to their political supremacy involved in the carving of new
free States out of the great West, whose possibilities were pow
beginning to be understood because of the rush to Califor-
nia, nor to the peculiarly dangerous position of their outpost
State, Missouri.* With Illinois on the east and Iowa on the
north, if Kansas and Nebraska should become free territory,
Missouri would be surrounded on three sides by Abolitionists,
and the safety of her unpaid labor system would be gravely
menaced. Since the popular indignation in the North had
failed to prevent the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill,
for which forty-four Northern Democrats voted in the House
and fourteen in the Senate, under the lead of Stephen A.
Douglas, the North could revenge itself only by preventing
the return to Washington of thirty-seven out of the forty-
four Congressmen,^ and by throwing itself heartily into the
work of beating the South at its own game of colonization.
By emigrant aid societies, by widespread appeals to the
liberty-loving citizens of the North to settle Kansas, by mass
meetings and public subscriptions to the funds raised to for-
ward settlers in large parties to the new Territories, — in a
hundred different ways, some of the necessary thousands were
induced to become a living bulwark to the extension of slav-
ery. Fortunately for them, the propagandists were aided enor-
mously by the rich character of the Kansas soil, the beauty
of its prairies, the charm of its climate, and the promise of its
streams. Had there been no question of slavery or freedom
involved, there must have been the same prompt taking up
of the public lands which has inevitaWy followed the throwing
open of new territory to settlement. j|^he sons of John Brown
were no more unmoved by the "gTowing accounts of the
extraordinary fertility, healthfulness and beauty of the terri-
tory of Kansas," than were thousands of others who sold off
their homes in New York, Ohio and Illinois to better their
fortunes beyond the Missouri River. To many of them, as to
the Browns, the opportunity to help save Kansas from the
curse of slavery was heartily welcome; to multitudes of others
this was a subsidiary issue, which interested them but little
until they suddenly found themselves in the maelstrom of
Kansas political passions and compelled to take sides, what-
ever their original opinions or desires.

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 8i

Owen, Frederick and Salmon Brown left Ohio for Kansas,
all unsuspicious of the tragedies before them, in October, 1854,
taking eleven head of cattle and three horses, their joint
property, to Chicago by water, and driving them thence to
Meridosia, Illinois. Here men and animals wintered until the
arrival of spring made it possible for them to cross the Mis-
souri.« On April 20, 1855, they entered Kansas, and on May
7, Jason and John were also at Osawatomie,' having left Ohio
with their families at the opening of navigation.* Theirs was
a typical Kansas settler's journey; to hundreds of other
Kansas home-seekers would John Brown, Jr.'s narrative of
this migration read almost as if written of their own experi-
ences after leaving St. Louis :

"At this period there were no railroads west of St. Louis; our
journey must be continued by boat on the Missouri at a time of
extremely low water, or by stage at great expense. We chose the
river route, taking passage on the steamer 'New Lucy,' which too
late we found crowded with passengers, mostly men from the South
bound for Kansas. That they were from the South was plainly in-
dicated bj' their language and dress ; while their drinking, profanity,
and display of revolvers and bowie-knives, openly wearing them as
an essential part of their make-up, clearly showed the class to which
they belonged and that their mission was to aid in establishing
slavery in Kansas.

"A box of fruit-trees and grape-vines which my brother Jason
had brought from Ohio, our plow and the few agricultural imple-
ments we had on the deck of that steamer, looked lonesome, for
these were all we could see which were adapted to the occupations
of peace. Then for the first time arose in our mind the query: Must
the fertile prairies of Kansas, through a struggle at arms, be first
secured to freedom before free men can sow and reap? If so, how
poorly were we prepared for such work will be seen when I say that
for arms for five of us brothers we had only two small squirrel rifles
and one revolver. But before we reached our destination other
matters claimed our attention. Cholera, which then prevailed to
some extent at St. Louis, broke out among our passengers, a num-
ber of whom died. Among these. Brother Jason's son, Austin, aged
four years, the elder of his two children, fell a victim to this scourge,
and while our boat lay by for repair of a broken rudder at Waverley,
Mo., we buried him at night near that panic-stricken town, our

' Mrs. Annie Brown Adams states that Salmon and Oliver Brown, as well as
their father and Henry Thompson, went to Kansas only to fight, not to settle;
the others were home-seekers. (See her letter of September 5, 1886, to the Kan-
sas Historical Society.)

82 JOHN BROWN

lonely way illumined only by the lightning of a furious thunder-
storm.

"True to his spirit of hatred of Northern people, our captain,
without warning to us on shore, cast off his lines and left us to make
our way by stage to Kansas City, to which place we had already
paid our fare by boat. Before we reached there, however, we be-
came very hungry, and endeavored to buy food at various farm-
houses on the way; but the occupants, judging from our speech
that we were not from the South, always denied us, saying, 'We
have nothing for you.' The only exception to this answer was at
the stage-house at Independence, Mo.

"Arrived in Kansas, her lovely prairies and wooded streams
seemed to us indeed like a haven of rest. Here in prospect we saw
our cattle increased to hundreds and possibly to thousands, fields
of corn, orchards, and vineyards. At once we set about the work
through which only our visions of prosperity could be realized. Our
tents would suffice for shelter until we could plow our land, plant
corn and other crops, fruit-trees, and vines, cut and secure us hay
enough of the waving grass to supply our stock the coming winter.'"

But if they were thus apparently bent on the occupations of
peace, they were from the beginning keeping an eye out for
the clash of arms. In his very first letter from the Territory
to his father, dated "Brownsville," May 21, 1855, Salmon,
while mentioning his "very pleasant trip through Missouri,"
added :

"We saw some of the curses of slavery and they are many. . . .
The boys have their feelings well worked up so that I think that
they will fight, there is a great lack of arms here in Brownsville,
I feel more like fight now than I ever did before and would be glad
to go to Alabama."

He reported further that he had no doubt of the success of
their emigration, for they had as many as five good claims,
had planted considerably and could already behold the first
tender shoots pushing their way into the air. Their claims
were eight miles from Osawatomie, on the very outskirts of
which stood and yet stands the picturesque log-cabin which
for nearly fifty years served as the homestead of the Adair
family, and is still prized by them beyond all other earthly
possessions. Here the Browns were certain of a hearty wel-
come from their father's half-sister Florilla and her husband,
the Rev. Mr. Adair.

On May 20 and 24, John Brown, Jr., wrote a long,

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 83

minutely detailed letter to his father, in which appear dearly
the mixed motives that had led to the emigration. The char-
acter of the country, the weather encountered, the planting
operations and the implements in use are all set forth, as well
as the low financial condition to which their frontier venture
had already brought them, and their almost general satisfac-
tion with the change:'

"... Salmon Fredk and Owen say that they never was in a coun-
try that begun to please them as well. And I will say, that the
present prospect for health, wealth, and usefulness much exceeds
even my most sanguine anticipations. I know of no country where
a poor man endowed with a share of common sense & with health,
can get a start so easy. If we can succeed in making this a free State,
a great work will be accomplished for mankind."

But the really important part of the letter deals with the
political impressions already acquired by the new settlers of
four weeks' standing:

" And now I come to the matter, that more than all else I intended
should be the principal subject of this letter. I tell you the truth,
when I say that while the interest of despotism has secured to its
cause hundreds and thousands of the meanest and most desperate
of men, armed to the teeth with Revolvers, Bowie Knives, Rifles
& Cannon, — while they are not only thoroughly organized, but
under pay from Slave-holders — the friends of freedom are not one
fourth of them half armed, and as to Military Organization among
them it no where exists in this territory unless they have recently
done something in Lawrence. The result of this is that the people
here exhibit the most abject and cowardly spirit, whenever their
dearest rights are invaded and trampled down by the lawless bands
of Miscreants which Missouri has ready at a moment's call to
pour in upon them. This is the general effect upon the people here
so far as I have noticed, there are a few, and but a few exceptions.
Of course these foreign Scoundrels know what kind of ^Allies' they
have to meet. They boast that they can obtain possession of the
polls in any of our election precincts without having to fire a gun.
I enclose a piece which I cut from a St. Louis paper named the St.
Louis 'Republican;' it shows the spirit which moves them. Now
Missouri is not alone in the undertaking to make this a Slave State.
Every Slaveholding State from Virginia to Texas is furnishing men
and money to fasten Slavery upon this glorious land, by means no
matter how foul. . . .

"Now the remedy we propose is, that the Anti slavery portion
of the inhabitants should immediately, thoroughly arm and organize

84 JOHN BROWN

themselves in military companies. In order to effect this, some per-
sons must begin and lead in the matter. Here are 5 men of us who
are not only anxious to fully prepare, but are thoroughly deter-
mined to fight. We can see no other way to meet the case. As in
the language of the memorial lately signed by the people here and
sent to Congress petitioning help, ' it is no longer a question of negro
slavery, but it is the enslavement of ourselves.'

"The General Government may be petitioned until the people
here are grey, and no redress will be had so long as it makes slavery
its paramount interest. — We have among us 5, i Revolver, i Bowie
Knife, i middling good Rifle i poor Rifle, i small pocket pistol
and 2 slung shot. What we need in order to be thoroughly armed
for each man, is i Colts large sized Revolver, i Allen & Thurbers'
large sized Revolver manufactured at Worcester, Mass, i Minnie
Rifle — they are manufactured somewhere in Mass or Connecticut
(Mr. Paine of Springfield would probably know) and I heavy Bowie
Knife — I think the Minnie Rifles are made so that a sword bayo-
net may be attached. With these we could compete with men who
even possessed Cannon. The real Minnie Rifle has a killing range
almost equal to Cannon and of course is more easily handled, per-
haps enough so to make up the difference. Now we want you to
get for us these arms. We need them more than we do bread. Would
not Gerrit Smith or someone, furnish the money and loan it to us
for one, two or three years, for the purpose, until we can raise
enough to refund it from the Free soil of Kanzas? ..."

This appeal for arms John Brown could not have resisted
had he desired to. He subsequently recorded that on the
receipt of this letter he was "fully resolved to proceed at once
to Kansas; and join his children."" The wish to "operate
elsewhere" had disappeared early in 1855. Indeed, before the
second detachment of his sons had started, he had begun to
arrange his affairs so that he too might emigrate. On February
13 he notified John W. Cook, of Wolcottville, Conn., of his
intentions :

"Since I saw you I have undertaken to direct the opperations of
a Surveying, & exploring party, to be employed in Kansas for a
considerable time perhaps for some Two or Three years; & I lack
for time to make all my arrangements, & get on to the ground in
season." "

Labor as he might, he was not able to dispose of his cattle,
wind up odds and ends of his business in Illinois, Ohio and
New England, collect arms for his sons, take leave of his
family at North Elba and start for the West, until the middle

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 85

of August. On June 28 he was at Syracuse, attending a con-
vention of anti-slavery men who called themselves Radical
Political Abolitionists. Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith,
Lewis Tappan and Samuel J. May were among the speakers,
as well as John Brown, and the convention unanimously
resolved that its members should do what they could to
prevent the return of fugitives. There was, however, con-
siderable difference of opinion in consequence of the proposal
to raise money for John Brown, that he might collect arms
for his sons. Douglass, of course, spoke earnestly in Brown's
behalf. Others were unwilling to encourage violence, but, as
Douglass afterwards reported : "The collection was taken up
with much spirit, nevertheless; for Capt. Brown was present
and spoke for himself ; and when he spoke men believed in the
man." 12 He received in all about sixty dollars in cash, twenty
dollars being from Gerrit Smith, and five dollars from an old
British Army officer, Charles Stuart. By April 24 he was able
to ship from Springfield to Cleveland a box of firearms and
flasks, which he subsequently picked up in Cleveland on his
way West.i'

Ex-Sheriff S. A. Lane, of Akron, testified, in an interview
printed in the Akron Beacon- Journal of February i, 1898,
that during his visit to Akron, on his way West in August,
Brown held open meetings in one of the public halls of the
village. Because of their interest in the Kansas crisis, and
in the Browns, their former neighbors, the people were quickly
roused by Brown's graphic words, and liberally contributed
arms of all sorts, ammunition and clothing. Committees of
aid were appointed, and Lane was deputed to accompany
Brown in a canvass of the village shops and offices for contri-
butions. Several cases of guns belonging to the State of Ohio,
then being collected from the disbanded militia companies
of Akron and Tallmadge, were "spirited away" to the same
end. General Lucius V. Bierce later testified to his own gift
of broadswords, the property of a defunct filibustering com-
pany. On the 15th of August, Brown reported to those remain-
ing at North Elba that he was leaving Cleveland via Hudson,
and would have been off before had he not met with such suc-
cess in obtaining "Guns Revolvers, Swords, Powder, Caps,
& money, " that he thought it best to "detain a day or Two

86 JOHN BROWN

longer on that account." He had raised nearly two hundred
dollars in that way in the two previous days, principally
in arms and ammunition." But the harvest being gathered,
he and his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, arrived in Chicago
August l8, after stopping at Cleveland and Detroit, where they
met Oliver Brown and at once prepared for the overland jour-
ney by buying a "nice young horse for which we paid here
$120, but have so much load that we shall have to walk a good
deal; enough probably, to give opportunity to supply our-
selves with game. We have provided the most of what we need
on our outward march " — so Brown wrote to his " Dear Wife
and Children; every one" on August 23, the day of leaving
Chicago, with solemn injunctions to write often and to direct
the letters to Oliver, since Oliver's name was "not so common
as either Henry's or mine.""^ The heavily loaded one-horse
wagon was in obedience to advice from John Brown, Jr., who
opined that his father would find it just what he wanted in
Kansas to carry on the business of surveying. Moreover, this
method of reaching Osawatomie was, if the slowest, the best
and cheapest way of travelling, particularly because the
navigation of the Missouri River was, as the son put it, "a
horrid business in a low stage of water which is a considerable
portion of the year.''^^

Not that roughing it could discourage John Brown, as we
know. There was found, after his capture in Virginia, in his
papers, the beginnings of an autobiographical volume en-
titled: ' A brief history of John Brown, otherwise (old B) and
his family: as connected With Kansas; By one who knows.' "
This was composed early in August, 1858, for on the 9th
of that month he wrote to his son John from Moneka, Kansas,
asking that certain letters and other material be sent him
for this book, which, had it been completed, would have been
sold for " the benefit of the whole of my family, or to promote
the cause of Freedom as may hereafter appear best for both
objects." * 1* In this all too brief fragment, written in the third
person, appears the story of his trip to Kansas, including

* "I am certain," he added, "from the manner in which I have been pressed
to narrate, and the greedy swallowing everywhere of what I have told, and com-
plaints in the newspapers voluntarily made of my backwardness to gratify the
public, that the book would find a ready sale."

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 87

fresh assurance from his own pen that "with the exposures,
privations, hardships, and wants, of pioneer Hfe he was
familiar; & thought he could benefit his Children and the
new beginners from the older parts 'of the country and help
them to shift."

The nice, stout young horse had all he could do, so Brown
records, to drag the load when he and his son and son-in-law
left Chicago behind them. Hence, continues his own narra-
tive, just cited:

"Their progress was extremely slow; & just before getting into
Missouri their horse got the distemper: after which for most of
the journey they could only gain some Six to Eight miles in a day.
This however gave them great opportunity for seeing & hearing
in Missouri. Companies of armed men, and individuals were con-
stantly passing and repassing Kansaswise continually boasting of
what deeds of patriotism ; & chivalry they had performed in Kansas ;
& of the still more mighty deeds they were yet to do. No man of
them would blush when telling of their cruel treading down & ter-
rifying of defenceless Free State men ; they seemed to take peculiar
satisfaction in telling of the fine horses, & mules they had many
of them killed in their numerous expeditions against the d — d
Abolitionists. The coarse, vulgar, profane, jests, & the bloodthirsty
brutual feelings to which they were giving vent continually would
have been a most exquisite treat to Ears ; and their general appear-
ance to the Eys of the past and the present Administration. Of
this there cannot be the slightest doubt or of the similiarly refined
feeling amongst their truly Democratic supporters and the dough
faces. Witness the rewards of such men as Clark and others.

" On the way at Waverly Missouri he took up the body of his little
grandson who had died of cholera . . . thinking it would afford
some relief to the broken hearted Father and Mother they having
been obliged to leave him amidst the ruffian-like people by whom
(for the most part) they were themselves so inhumanly treated in
their distress. The parents were almost frenzied with joy on being
told that the body of their dear child was again with them. On his
arrival at the place where his sons had located he found all the com-
pany completely prostrate with sickness (Chill fever, and Fever
and Ague) except the wife of John Jr and her little boy of some three
years old. The strongest of all the five men scarcely able to bring
in their Cows, cut their fuel, bring the water, and grind the little
corn which with a little dried fruit they had left ; a very few Potatoes
they had raised and a small supply of milk. ..."

One picturesque and characteristic incident of the crossing
of the enemy's territory John Brown himself did not record,

88 JOHN BROWN

since fate intervened here and prevented the addition of
another word to what was to have been his first venture
into literature. His son-in-law, Henry Thompson, relates that
when they reached the Missouri River at Brunswick, Missouri,
they set themselves down to await the ferry. There came to
them an old man, frankly Missourian, frankly inquisitive after
the manner of the frontier. "Where," said he, "are you go-
ing?" "To Kansas," replied John Brown. "Where from?"
asked the old man. ' ' From New York, ' ' answered John Brown.
"You won't live to get there." "We are prepared," said John
Brown, ''not to die alone." Before that spirit and that eagle
eye, the old man quailed; he turned and left."

It was on October 6 that the advance guard of the car-
avan reached the family settlement at Osawatomie. Brown
himself, being very tired, did not cover the last mile or two
until the next day. They arrived in an all but destitute con-
dition, with but sixty cents between them, to find the little
family settlement in great distress, not only because of the
sickness already noted, but because of the absence of any
shelter save tents. The bitterly cold and cutting winds, which
did much to disillusionize so many of the emigrants, kept
the Browns shivering over their little fires, and the exposure
added to their ill-health. The crops that had been raised were
not cared for; there was no meat, little sugar, and nothing
to make bread with, save corn ground by great labor in a
hand mill two miles off.^" The men, enfeebled by the chills
and ague which racked, sooner or later, all the new arrivals
in Kansas, had lost their initiative and vigor, and needed the
resolute sternness of the head of the family to stimulate them
to new efforts. By postponing the building of cabins, they
had been able to devote themselves to the crops; and the
abundance of excellent corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes,
melons, beans, etc., which had earlier constituted their fare,
compensated them for most of the inconveniences they had
been compelled to put up with, so wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr.,
to her mother-in-law at North Elba."

But the time had more than arrived when they should
devote themselves to home-building. On October 25 there
was the "hardest freezing" John Brown had ever witnessed
south of North Elba at that season of the year, as he reported

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 89

to his wife, in o'. ler that she should know, "in that misera-
ble Frosty region ' of North Elba, that "those here are not
altogether in Paradise." " Indeed, nobody in Kansas that
unusually cold winter of 1855-56 knew what comforts were.
Had there been no political anxieties to vex them, the frightful
hardships of pioneering and the acclimating sicknesses would
have made that period truly dreadful to look back upon.
While the Browns paid the penalty for living on low ground
in a ravine and in tents, that first summer, their bitter experi-
ence was yet vastly better than that of many another family.
Starvation and death looked in at many a door where parents
lay helpless, while famished children crawled the unbearded
floors crying for food, shrieking with fear if any footstep
approached, lest the comer be a Border Ruffian instead of a
friend. For pure misery and heart-breaking suffering, these
pioneer tales of Kansas in 1855-58 are not surpassed by any
in the whole history of the winning of the West.*

By November 2, Jason's and John's "shanties" were well
advanced; by the 23d, their father reported these two fam-
ilies so well sheltered that they would not suffer any more,
and that he had made some progress in preparing another
house, in the face of icy rains and freezing nights. "Still,"
wrote the indomitable directing spirit, "God has not 'for-
saken us ; ' & we get ' day by day our dayly Bread ; ' & I wish
we had a great deal more gratitude to mingle with our unde-
served blessings." ^' One dread that had worried them prior
to their departure from home proved unnecessary. "You
recollect we used to talk a great deal about the Indians,"
wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., "and how much I feared them
— they are the least of my troubles — there is scarcely a day
but they go along in sight of us in droves of from 30 to 40,
sometimes more and sometimes less, and frequently four or
five of them will come galloping up to see us; they have always
treated us perfectly civil and I believe if we treat them the

* See, for instance, Mrs. M. D. Colt, Went to Kansas, Watertown, New York,
1862; Mrs. SaraT. L. Robinson's Kansas, its Interior and Exterior Life, Bos-
ton, 1858; Thaddeus Hyatt's MS. Journal of Investigations in Kansas, 1856-57,
Kansas Historical Society; Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady (Hannah Anderson
Ropes), Boston, 1856; ' Memoir of Samuel Walker,' in Kansas Historical Society
Collections, vol. 6, pp. 249-274; Three Years on the Kansas Border, by a Clergy-
man of the Episcopal Church, New York, 1856.

90 JOHN BROWN

same they will do us no harm." ^^ Her prophrcy was a correct
one. It was not the red but the white men r the border they
had to fear. Terrified as they were wheo. the first big band
of Sacs and Foxes in war-paint surrounded their tents, whoop-
ing and yelling, the Browns had the good sense to ground their
arms, and the Indians did likewise. Thereafter both sides were
great friends. John, Jr., went often to visit their old chief;
once, when, in the following summer, the Indians came to call
in numbers, they were "fought" with gifts of melons and
green corn. ' ' That, ' ' says Jason Brown, ' ' was the nicest party
I ever saw."

John Brown, Jr., used to ask the old chief questions, as:
"Why do you Sacs and Foxes not build houses and barns like
the Ottawas and Chippewas? Why do you not have schools
and churches like the Delawares and Shawnees? Why do you
have no preachers and teachers?" And the chief replied in a
staccato which summed up wonderfully the bitter, century-
long frontier experience of his people: "We want no houses
and barns. We want no schools and churches; We want no
preachers and teachers. We bad enough now." "^

The men really to be feared were not long in putting in
appearance. A few days after the arrival of the Brown ad-
vance guard in April, six or eight heavily armed Missourians
rode up and inquired if any stray cattle had been seen in that
neighborhood. On receiving a prompt negative, in the ver-
nacular of the border they inquired how the newcomers were
"on the goose." "We are Free State," was the answer, "and
more than that, we are Abolitionists." The visitors rode away
at once and, says Jason Brown, "from that moment we were
marked for destruction. Before we had been in the Territory
a month, we found we had to go armed and to be prepared
to defend our lives." The leader of that band of Missourians
might not have been allowed to ride away, had the outspoken
Northerners before them realized the sinister part the Rev.
Martin White was to play in their lives, — if they could have
dreamed that he was to shoot down one of their number in
cold blood within a twelvemonth.^'

It must be said, however, that the Browns were aggressive
from the beginning. They not only nailed their colors to the
mast and let all who would behold them, but they gave play

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 91

to those feelings which, as Salmon reported, had been so well
worked up in crossing Missouri. John Brown, Jr., Jason,
Frederick and Owen eagerly attended Free State settlers'
meetings," and the first-named figured soon in the political
history of the Territory. On the afternoon of Monday, June
25, 1855, he was elected a vice-president of the Free State
convention which, then in session at Lawrence, solemnly
urged all the people of Kansas to throw away their differences
and make the freedom of Kansas the sole issue. Its mem-
bers called upon Free State representatives to resign from
the bogus Shawnee Legislature chosen by Missouri votes,
declared that the convention did not feel that its members
should obey any laws of the Legislature's exacting, and finally
resolved, with a spirit that must have gratified every Brown,
"That in reply to the threats of war so frequently made in our
neighbor state, our answer is, 'WE ARE READY.' " ^^ Natu-
rally, John Brown, Jr.'s participation in this expression of
feeling — he was a member of the committee on resolutions
— did not improve his standing with his Southern neighbors,
of whom a good many were soon to be free with their threats
and boasts that they would drive off every Yankee.^" But
this did not deter him in the least from attending the radical
Lawrence gathering of August 15, in which, according to the
Herald of Freedom, he was a member of the steering, or busi-
ness committee, nor from becoming a member of the first
Territorial Executive Committee, an outgrowth of the Big
Springs convention of September 5.'"

When the fraudulent Pawnee Legislature convened, July
2, 1855, it enacted, true to its lawless inception, a code of
punishments for Free State men that must always rank as
one of the foremost monuments of legislative tyranny and
malevolence in the history of this country. Under that code
no one conscientiously opposed to slavery, or who failed to
admit the right of everybody to hold slaves, could serve as a
juror; and the right to hold office was restricted to pro-slavery
men. Five years at hard labor was to be the fate of any one
introducing literature calculated to make a slave disorderly
or dangerous or disaffected. Death itself was the penalty for
raising a rebellion among slaves or supplying them with
literature which advised them to rise or conspire against any

92 JOHN BROWN

citizen. The mere voicing of a belief that slavery was illegal
in Kansas was made a grave crime, in the following words:

"Sec. 12: If any free person, by speaking or writing, assert or main-
tain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory,
print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into the
Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, con-
taining any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this
Territory, such persons shall be deemed guilty of felony, and pun-
ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than
five years." ''

This clause was obviously aimed at the New York Tribune
and other anti-slavery journals, and was meant to be an
effective padlock upon free speech. General J. H. String-
fellow, a resident of Atchison and the Speaker of the House
that passed this gag-law, bgasted that it and other legislation
"will be enforced to the very letter." '^ This challenge John
Brown, Jr., promptly accepted. The code from which we
have quoted became operative on September 15, 1855. What
he did on that day, John Brown, Jr., recorded on the next in
a letter to his mother:

"Yesterday I told a man who I since learn has a slave here that
no man had a right to hold a slave in Kansas, that I called on him
to witness that I had broken this law and that I still intended to
do so at all times and at all places, and further that if any officer
should attempt to arrest me for a violation of this law and should
put his vilainous hands on me, I would surely kill him so help me
God. He made no reply but rode off. — Nothing is now wanting
but an attempt to enforce this Law with others of like import, which
Gov. Shannon has declared he will do, and we shall have war here
to the knife." ^'

"Perhaps," wrote Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her brother-in-
law, Watson, then at North Elba, "we shall all get shot for
disobeying their beautiful laws, but you might as well die here
in a good cause as freeze to death there." '* The belligerent
attitude of the men of her party might well have given her
anxiety. It was as if they had intended from the first to make
Osawatomie the storm centre of southeastern Kansas, and
to bring down upon them the special attentions of the most
radical men on the other side of the border, men of the type
of General Stringfellow, a brother of B. F. Stringfellow, who

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 93

declared on August 28, 1855, in his newspaper, the Squatter
Sovereign, published at Atchison, Kansas, on the Missouri Hne:

"We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of the [New York] Tribune
that they may exhaust an ocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies
spend their millions and billions, their representatives in Congress
spout their heretical theories till doomsday, and his excellency
Franklin Pierce appoint abolitionist after free-soiler as governor,
yet we will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch and hang
every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil."^^

With those and other threats ringing in their ears, the sons
of John Brown unloaded the arms donated by friends of free
Kansas in the East and hauled by that stout young horse
across Illinois and Missouri, while John Brown himself sur-
veyed the settlement of Osawatomie, whose name was hence-
forth to be linked with his and thus obtain an imperishable
place in American history, although his own stay in the simple
frontier settlement was to be brief indeed, — not eleven
months in all.

To Kansas John Brown came with no thought of settling.
Surveying was to give him a livelihood while he remained,
but he came to fight, prepared to battle along that Kansas-
Missouri line for two or three years, by which time he felt
the victory should be won, and he be free to assail slavery at
another point.'* The Kansas country delighted him. Indeed,
he told his children that, if a younger man, he would certainly
stay with them, but that so long as he had a good farm at
North Elba, he felt that by common industry he could main-
tain his wife and daughters there while his sons settled where
fancy led them." He went so far, on his arrival, as to think
of taking a claim near his sons' settlement, but the battles
and tragedies of the immediate future prevented his consider-
ing the matter further. '» In March, 1859, he wrote to John
Teesdale that "it has been my deliberate judgment since 1855
that the most ready and effectual way to retrieve Kansas
would be to meddle directly with the peculiar institution."
He arrived ready to grapple with it, to meet violence with
violence, to do to the Border Ruffians what they were doing
to Free Soilers. To accomplish this, he was ready to take from
the pro-slavery men their chattels, whether living or immo-
bile, and even their lives.

94 JOHN BROWN

Until well into the spring of 1855 the drift of affairs in
Kansas had been wholly against the Free Soilers, despite the
emigration from New England. ^^ Bona fide Missouri settlers
were naturally first in the field, by reason of their proximity
to the newly opened lands, and were quicker in organizing,
under the leadership of Atchison and of the Stringfellow
brothers and their allies. They were on hand at the first elec-
tion held in the Territory, November 29, 1854, for a_ delegate
to Congress, and to their aid came hundreds of residents of
Missouri, on horseback and in wagons, with guns, bowie-
knives, revolvers and plenty of whiskey. Encamping near the
polling places," on election day, these visitors cast 1729 fraud-
ulent votes" to the satisfaction of their leaders, thus electing
the pro-slavery candidate. General J. W. Whitfield. Atchi-
son, on November 6, had pointed out in a speech at Weston,
Missouri, how easily the trick could be turned: "When you
reside in one day's journey of the Territory, and when your
peace, your quiet and your property depend upon your action,
you can without an exertion send five hundred of your young
men who will vote in favor of your institutions. Should each
county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question
will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we
are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern States
will have shown themselves recreant to their interests and
will deserve their fate."" As it happened, "some of the lead-
ing men of Missouri, comprising merchants, doctors and law-
yers, were recognized among the ballot-box stuffers." Judges,
too, were there, and the city attorney of St. Joseph. There
was nothing concealed about the transaction. The coming
of the Missourians was foretold by Free Soil correspond-
ents.^^ When the visitors had closed the polls, they gayly
shouted, "All aboard for Kansas City and Westport," and
drove or rode away.** In one district, the seventh, seventy-
five miles from the Missouri line, — which had "three months
afterward only 53 voters according to the official census, —
there were cast 604 votes. The Howard Committee* reported
that fully 584 of these were illegal.*^

* Authorized by the House of Representatives, March 19, 1856, to investigate
the Kansas situation. It consisted of William A. Howard, of Michigan, John
Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri.

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 95

This invasion, curiously enough, was quite unnecessary
to carry the day for Missouri, for the Free Soilers were then
in a numerical minority to the bona fide Missouri settlers, as
also when the official census was taken three months later,
in February, 1855. ^« Indeed, for fully eight months after the
opening of the Territory on July i, 1854, the Missourians
bade fair to overrun Kansas. Moreover, at the time of the
election, the Free Soilers were divided in their counsels, with-
out recognized leaders or a definite policy, and took little inter-
est in the voting, not one- half of them going to the polls.*' But
the appetite for illegal interference in a sister State grew with
its indulgence. The victory of November 29 was proclaimed
as a great and lasting triumph for the slavery forces. The
Kansas Herald of Leavenworth announced that " the triumph
of the pro-slavery party is complete and overwhelming, . . .
Kansas is saved,"** and its jubilation was echoed throughout
Missouri. The St. Louis Pilot rejoiced "at this decisive result,
— as well on account of the success of General Whitfield,
as that it will tend to quiet the fear and anxiety pervading
the Western frontier, that this State would be flanked on the
west with an unprincipled set of fanatics and negro-thieves,
imported expressly to create annoyance, and disturb the social
relations of the people of the frontier counties." *^ The friends
of liberty in the East were correspondingly depressed. "We
believe that there are at this hour four chances that Kansas
will be a Slave State to one that she will be Free," wrote Hor-
ace Greeley in the Tribune of December 7. In Washington it
was generally thought that the South had possessed itself of
Kansas,*" even though the February, 1855, census showed that
only 192 slaves had been taken into the Territory, in which
there were also 151 free negroes. "Some of the Southern men
coolly say they have taken Kansas so easily that they think
it may be worth while to take Nebraska also," reported
Greeley's Washington correspondent on February 13, 1855.

Naturally, in the East the November invasion was used lay
the Tribune and other backers of the Emigrant Aid Societies
to stimulate recruiting for the Kansas holy war." On the
other hand, the arrival of bands of New Englanders sent out
by the Emigrant Aid Societies, the first of which reached Law-
rence August I, 1854," had intensely inflamed the Missouri-

96 JOHN BROWN

ans, and continued to do so for the next two years. "Shall
we allow such cut-throats and murderers, as the people of
Massachusetts are, to settle in the territory adjoining our own
state?" asked the Liberty Platform, a Missouri border news-
paper, in June, 1854; and it answered its own question thus:
"No! If popular opinion will not keep them back, we should
see what virtue there is in the force of arms.""_ In August,
on hearing of the arrival of the first Emigrant Aid party, the
Platte County Argus declared that: "It is now time to sound
the alarm. We know we speak the sentiments of some of the
most distinguished statesmen of Missouri when we advise that
counter-organizations be made both in Kansas and Missouri
to thwart the reckless course of the Abolitionists. We must
meet them at their own threshold and scourge them back
to their covers of darkness. They have made the issue, and
it is for us to meet and repel them." ^* To the Missourians
in 1854 and later, their fellow countrymen from the historic
Bay State appeared the scum of Northern cities, hired to vote,
and not intending to settle Kansas in a normal way; "the
lowest class of rowdies;" "the most unmitigated looking set
of blackguards;" "hellish emigrants and paupers whose
bellies are filled with beggars' food;" men of "black and
poisonous hearts," ^^ — thus had one section of Americans
been set against their brothers by the divine institution of
slavery. "Riff-raflf," "scoundrels" and "criminals" were
mild adjectives applied to Eastern settlers, in whose eyes the
Border Ruffians were an equally low and degraded set of
beings, drunken bandits "armed to the teeth" and revelling
in cruelty, — in brief, fiends incarnate. "Rough, coarse,
sneering, swaggering, dare-devil looking rascals as ever swung
upon a gallows," was the way Dr. J. V. S. Smith, of Boston,
characterized them.'^

"Reader," asked William A. Phillips, the Kansas corre-
spondent of the Tribune, "did you ever see a Border Ruffian?
. . . Imagine a fellow, tall, slim, but athletic, with yellow
complexion, hairy-faced, with a dirty flannel shirt, or red
or blue, or green, a pair of common-place, but dark-colored
pants, tucked into an uncertain altitude by a leather belt, in
which a dirty-handled bowie-knife is stuck rather ostenta-
tiously, an eye slightly whiskey-red, and teeth the color of a

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 97

walnut. Such is your Border Ruffian of the lowest type."
"In a representation," he added, "of the 'Forty Thieves,'
they would have been invaluable, with their grim visages,
their tipsy expression, and, above all, their oaths and unap-
proachable swagger." " To Thomas H. Gladstone, a relative
of the great statesman of that name, the Border Ruffians
seemed to be "wearing the most savage looks and giving
utterance to the most horrible imprecations and blasphemies.
. . . Looking around at these groups of drunken, bellowing,
blood-thirsty demons, who crowded around the bar of the
house shouting for drink, or vented their furious noise on the
levee without, I felt that all my former experiences of border
men and Missourians bore faint comparison with the spec-
tacle presented by the wretched crew, who appeared only the
more terrifying from the darkness of the surrounding night." "
This of the men he met in Kansas City after they returned
from the sacking of Lawrence in 1856. The earlier invaders
of Kansas Mrs. Charles Robinson described as "rough, bru-
tal-looking men, of most nondescript appearance ; " "bands of
whiskey-drinking, degraded, foul-mouthed marauders.""

Undoubtedly their ranks did include the scum of the bor-
der; that was inevitable. But, aside from their desire to foster
slavery in Kansas, they had been easily convinced by their
leaders that the coming by droves of New England Yankees
actually menaced their homes, their wives and children, their
property, human or otherwise. As soon as Kansas was sub-
merged by the incoming tide of Abolition, the anti-slavery
attack was to be directed against Missouri and Texas, and
then the fall of slavery would be certain. Senator Atchison,
in his speech at Weston which has already been cited, de-
clared that "if we cannot do this [take Kansas], it is an omen
that the institution of Slavery is to fail in this and the other
Southern States." As late as July, 1856, the Charleston, S. C,
Courier affirmed that: "Now, upon the proposition that the
safety of the institution of Slavery in South Carolina is de-
pendent upon its establishment in Kansas, there can be no
rational doubt." "The touchstone of our political existence
is Kansas — that is the question," wrote the Washington cor-
respondent of the Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1856, six
months earlier."" For what other purpose could the Yankees

98 JOHN BROWN

be carrying arms, was asked after the election in 1855, when
Charles Robinson succeeded, through his agent, George W.
Deitzler, in obtaining Sharp's rifles from the officers of the
Emigrant Aid Society in Boston, they being shipped to him
labelled ' ' Revised Statutes " and " Books. " "

Elated as they were by their triumph at the polls in the first
election, the Missourians were disposed to take no chances of
defeat when the second one took place. This was called by
the first Territorial Governor, Andrew H. Reeder, for March
30, 1855,°^ and in preparing for it the Missouri pro-slavery
men displayed that talent for rapid military organization
which was so evident in the South in 1 861. Since this elec-
tion was for the choice of the first Territorial Legislature, its
importance was far greater than the mere selection of a dele-
gate to Congress. Both sides felt that whoever chose the Legis-
lature settled the destiny both of the Territory and of the
future State of Kansas as well. No one could accuse the Free
Soilers of lacking interest this time. But they were still too
young upon the soil, and had not suffered enough indigni-
ties, to make them united for a common cause. Moreover,
the winter of 1854-55 had been not only unusually mild, but
politically quiet as well." Hence the Missourians again car-
ried everything before them when they invaded Kansas for
the second time to deny to its citizens of Northern and
Eastern origin the votes to which they were rightfully enti-
tled. They came by companies, each assigned to its special
field of activity, and overawed every election district save
one.'* One thousand men devoted their attention to Lawrence
as the home of the most Abolitionists." Some of these had
belonged to the then disbanded Platte County, Missouri,
"Self-Defensive Association," which by formal vote of its
members was pledged to "bring to immediate punishment
all Abolitionists," and to remove from Kansas Territory on
demand of any citizen of that Territory, "any and all emi-
grants who go there under the auspices of the Northern Emi-
grant Associations." " The Blue Lodges, similar organizations
for the protection of Missouri by making Kansas impossible
to all save emigrants from the South, were well in evidence.
Each wagon of the raiders bore the designation of an order
or lodge." What happened on March 30 was merely a repe-

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 99

tition of November 29 on a larger and bolder and more flagrant
scale. The violations of law and order, the stuffing of the
ballot-boxes, the terrorizing of the Free Soilers, the expelling
of Northern election officials, — in brief, the subversion of the
most precious of our free institutions was complete. The
sacredness of the ballot was nowhere respected. Of the 6307
votes cast, nearly five-sixths were those of the invaders.^'
The thirty-nine men who were elected were all representatives
of the South, with one exception. Seven of the pro-slavery men
Governor Reeder unseated, not because of the frauds, but be-
cause of technical flaws in their election. He later explained
his not declaring more seats vacant, although he knew that
the whole election was a fraud, by stating that no other com-
plaints had been filed, and that he thus lacked official infor-
mation, — a valid technical excuse. Complaints were not
readily made because the Missourians threatened with death
any who might venture to file them. Indeed, the Governor
deserves some credit for unseating those legislators he did.
He rendered his decision in a room crowded by fourteen of
his friends, all armed, and by the thirty-nine successful can-
didates, veritable walking arsenals!'" But no shooting oc-
curred. The Missourians were well content with the dis-
qualification of only seven of their number. Subsequently,
they summarily ousted the seven Free Soilers legally elected
to fill these vacancies, and the remaining Free Soil member
promptly resigned.'" The Legislature was thus pro-slavery
throughout.

It must not be thought that this high-handed outrage,
which fairly set the North aflame with indignation, went
without reprobation from the soberer elements in Missouri.
The exultant Stringfellows and Atchisons represented the
blood and thunder pro-slaveryites ; but there were other
voices. To their credit be it recorded that the Parkville
Luminary, Boonville Observer, Independence Messenger, Jef-
ferson City Inquirer, Missouri Democrat, St. Louis Intelli-
gencer, Columbia Statesman, Western Reporter, Glasgow Times,
Fulton Telegraph, Paris Mercury and Hannibal Messenger
spoke out bravely against the invasion of Kansas by mobs and
the frauds at the polls." For its conscientious scruples the
Parkville Luminary promptly met an unmerited fate. It was

100 JOHN BROWN

completely destroyed on April 14, its plant being thrown into
the river and its editors warned that, if found in town three
weeks later, they would follow their type into the Missouri.
If they moved to Kansas, the mob assured them, they would
be followed and hanged wherever found." If a citizens' meet-
ing at Webster, Missouri, highly approved of this action and
asserted that they had "no arguments against abolition papers
but Missouri River, bonfire and hemp rope," " there were
plenty of more conservative citizens. Unfortunately, they
remained in the minority; but to them appealed the argument
that if the entire border population of Missouri were to move
into Kansas, the injury to Missouri's progress and prosperity
would be great. They felt, all the more as they were attached
to their own homes, that upon the States farther South rested
the duty of colonizing Kansas."*

The first Territorial Legislature, which so thoroughly mis-
represented Kansas, met at Pawnee on July 2. After un-
seating the Free Soil delegates and organizing, it adjourned
to meet again at Shawnee on July 16. This change of location
gave Governor Reeder the opportunity which he had been
seeking. He had vetoed the removal bill, only to have it
passed over his veto.'^ He then declared that the Legislature
was no longer a legal body. In this contention he was not
upheld by the Chief Justice of the Territory, S. D. Lecompte,
the Associate Justice, Rush Elmore, and the United States
District Attorney, A. J. Isacks," and the Legislature there-
after went its own way and had little to do with the Execu-
tive. It did, however, petition President Pierce for Reeder's
removal. Its messenger learned on his way that Reeder had
been dismissed from office on July 28, ostensibly not because
of the quarrel with the Legislature, but because of his specu-
lations in Indian lands near Pawnee." The underlying reason
was, none the less, the pro-slavery party's hatred of him."
As for his land speculations, he openly stated to the Howard
Committee the circumstances connected therewith, and they
have not been held to reflect on his character.'" Governor
Reeder at once became a valuable leader of the Kansas Free
Soilers, being thus forcibly converted into an Abolitionist from
a sympathizer with the Squatter Sovereignty policy, and was
regarded in the East as a martyr to the Abolition cause,

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD loi

particularly after he was compelled to flee from Kansas in
disguise, in May, 1856, never to return to that State. As for
the Legislature, it spent July and August in authorizing a
militia, appointing a full staff of pro-slavery military and civil
officers, in establishing a complete code of laws for the gov-
ernment of the Territory, based on the Missouri code, and
in passing those extreme Black Laws which John Brown, Jr.,
was so quick to violate. On the last day of its session, the
Speaker, General J. H. Stringfellow, offered a characteristic
resolution, which was readily adopted: "It is the duty of the
Proslavery Party, the Union men of Kansas Territory, to
know but one issue, Slavery; and that any party making or
attempting to make any other, is, and should be, held, as an
ally of abolitionism and disunion." ^o For all this, no genuine
attempt was made to enforce the Black Laws ; they were dead
letters from the time of enactment. If they were intended to
frighten off further emigration from free States, they failed
miserably ; if they were intended to terrorize those already in
the Territory, they were an even more dismal failure. On the
other hand, reprinted in pamphlet form and widely circulated
throughout the North and East, the Black Laws added fuel
to the already intense flame of Northern indignation, and
became an unanswerable demonstration of the intolerance
of the pro-slavery domination of Kansas and the lengths to
which it would go.

The Free State men, especially those in Lawrence, among
whom Charles Robinson, the agent of the New England Emi-
gration Society, and Martin F. Conway were beginning to
stand out as leaders, as soon as they could calmly consider
the situation, decided that the bogus Legislature and its laws
must be repudiated." It soon became their policy to call a
Constitutional convention, frame a Constitution and then
apply to Congress for admittance as a free State. As has
already been pointed out, they were not united among them-
selves. If there were ardent Abolitionists among them, there
were also many who were unfriendly to the free negro, even
when they wished slavery excluded from the Territory. The
men who had settled Kansas represented every state of politi-
cal belief, for the magnet of free land was all that had drawn
many of them there. In the summer of 1855 they might

102 JOHN BROWN

roughly have been classed as moderates and radicals; there
existed, too, considerable jealousy on the part of the other
emigrants toward those New Englanders who came out under
the auspices of the Emigrant Aid Societies.*^ The first of six
conventions to meet in Lawrence on or before August 15, in
order to repudiate the Legislature, was composed of citizens
of that settlement. It assembled June 8 and decided to issue
a call for a State convention, to be made up of five delegates
from each of the eighteen election districts in Kansas. This
convention was to have as its purpose the taking "into con-
sideration the relation the people of this Territory bear to the
Legislature about to convene at Pawnee."*^ It was to this
gathering that John Brown, Jr., came on June 25, to help
to draft the announcement that the Free State men answered
"Ready" to the threats of war from Missouri. This conven-
tion further resolved that it was in favor of making Kansas
a free Territory and in consequence a free State. Finally,
since the Pawnee Legislature "owed its existence to a com-
bined system of fraud and force," the members of the conven-
tion resolved that they were bound by no laws whatsoever
of its creation.**

Two days later, June 27, James H. Lane made his first
appearance in Kansas history as chairman of the abortive
attempt to organize the National Democratic party in the
Territory, this failure soon bringing Lane into the ranks of
the Free Soilers. Unlike all the other conventions of this
period, it in no wise attempted to repudiate the Legislature.*^
The next gathering, that of July 11, was attended by the
expelled Free State members of the Legislature and other citi-
zens. In it the conflict of opinion between radicals and mod-
erates was very marked, the repudiation of the Legislature
and the call for a mass meeting in Lawrence on August 14,
to consider the government of the Territory, alone being
unanimous.*^ The August 14 convention, in which Lane par-
ticipated, turned out to be ready for a fairly radical stand.
Dr. Charles Robinson was chairman of the committee on
resolutions, which roundly denounced the bogus Legislature,
repudiated its authority, and committed the Free State party
to the forming of a State Constitution of their own with a view
to admission to the Union, but provided no machinery by

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 103

which this should be done. If the resolutions were radical,
the net result -vVas conservative. On the second day there was
also adopted a call for a convention at Big Springs, to be held
on September 5. Delegates to it were to be appointed at a
meeting on August 25, and the purpose of these gatherings
was to be left largely to what the hour might demand.

Curiously, as if the specific relationship and purpose of
these gatherings were not puzzling enough, a second conven-
tion also met in Lawrence on August 15, while the first was
still in session. This second body was presided over by Dr.
A. Hunting, and comprised the radicals of the Free State
party, some of whom, like Charles Robinson and M. F. Con-
way, were actually members of both conventions. John
Brown, Jr., was one of the committee on "business," which
turned out to be a call for a constitutional gathering at Topeka
on October 19, for the "speedy formation of a State consti-
tution, with an intention of immediate application to be
admitted as a State into the Union of the United States of
America." The distinction between these two simultaneous
conventions of August 15 may be stated thus: The first and
larger one, of six hundred members, had as its aim the organi-
zation of the Free State political party by means of the Big
Springs convention ; the second and radical one looked to the
immediate establishment of a Free State government, to be
set up in opposition to the pro-slavery Legislature still sitting
at the Shawnee Mission, and now presided over by the second
Territorial Governor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, — a Governor,
in truth, to please the most violent Border Ruffian or pro-
slavery agitator.''

Out of these numerous meetings came the Big Springs
convention on September 5, which adopted a platform —
the first one — for the Free State party, and nominated ex-
Governor Reeder as delegate to Congress. The platform was
a great disappointment to the radical Abolitionists of the
John Brown type, both in Kansas and New England, for
while it resolved that slavery was a curse and that Kansas
should be free, it announced that it would consent "to any
fair and reasonable provision in regard to the slaves already
in the Territory." More than that, it specifically voted that
Kansas should be a free white State, and recorded itself as

104 JOHN BROWN

being in favor of "stringent laws excluding all negroes, bond
and free, from the Territory." Indeed, as if to answer the
Southern charge that the Free Soil citizens of Kansas were
radical, no-union-with-slaveholders, anti-slavery men, the
convention denounced attempts to interfere with slavery and
slaves, and declared "that the stale and ridiculous charge of
Abolitionism so industriously imputed to the Free State party
... is without a shadow of truth to support it."** It is
hardly surprising that to those men who, like the Browns, had
come to Kansas to wage war with slavery, this policy of com-
promise— a last attempt to head off a violent conflict be-
tween the two forces contending for control of the Territory
— should have smacked of the cowardly. Nor did the vigorous
denunciation of the Shawnee Legislature in the resolutions
passed by the convention mollify men of this type. Charles
Stearns, the only Lawrence representative of the Liberator
school of Abolitionists, denounced the proceedings with the
vigor of language characteristic of that school, and was in turn
reprobated as an impossible Garrisonian of the deepest dye.
"All sterling anti-slavery men, here and elsewhere, cannot keep
from spitting upon it [the platform]," wrote Stearns to the
Kansas Free State of September 24, 1855, "and all pro-slavery
people must, in their hearts, perfectly despise the base syco-
phants who originated and adopted it." *' In the East, Horace
Greeley reluctantly accepted the platform in the following
words: "Why free blacks should be excluded it is difficult to
understand ; but if Slavery can be kept out by a compromise
of that sort, we shall not complain. An error of this character
may be corrected; but let Slavery obtain a foothold there
and it is not so easily removed." '"

Doubtless when Lawrence was threatened with destruc-
tion less than three months later, by the pro-slavery forces
encamped on the Wakarusa River, Mr. Stearns cited their
presence as proof that the Big Springs platform had utterly
failed to mollify the hostile Missourians or to lessen their con-
tempt for the Free Soilers, whom they still despised as arrant
cowards. Certain it is that the trend of events speedily
forced the Free State party itself into an entirely different
attitude from that it sought to maintain at Big Springs. The
anti-negro attitude of the party was, however, upheld at the

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 105

Topeka convention, which met at Topeka on October 23 to
form a Constitution in obedience to the decision of the earUer
delegate convention of September 19 (ordered by the radical
Lawrence convention of August 15). The Topeka Constitu-
tional convention of thirty-four members, presided over by
James H. Lane, consisted of four physicians, twelve lawyers,
thirteen farmers, two merchants, two clergymen and one
saddler; a majority favored the exclusion of free negroes,
but finally decided to submit this question to the people."
By 1287 ballots to 453, the voters of the Territory upheld
the negro exclusion policy on December 15, and made it clear
to the rest of the country that, if slavery in Kansas itself was
opposed by the Free Soil party, it was not in the least due to
any liking for negroes, or any desire to extend to those who
were free the opportunities afforded by the opening of the
Territory, or to any belief that the continuance of human
bondage was inconsistent with American institutions. Three-
fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a free white
State, and the heaviest voting against the free negro was in
Lawrence and Topeka.'^ Obviously, those who had come to
Kansas with the purpose of opposing the extension of slavery
were in a small minority, just as the scanty slave population
shows either that few of the Missouri settlers came solely for
slavery's sake, or else that, if they had such a purpose, they
feared to bring their slaves with them.''

On the credit side of the record of the Big Springs conven-
tion must be noted its denunciation of the bogus pro-slavery
Legislature, its demand for the sacredness of the "great
'American Birthright' — the elective franchise," and its
endorsement of the coming Topeka convention to consider
the adoption of a Constitution. There was, moreover, a se-
rious threat in one of its resolutions that there would be
submission to the Legislature's laws no longer than the
Territory's best interests required, when there would follow
opposition "to a bloody issue as soon as we ascertain that
peaceable remedies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall fur-
nish any reasonable measure of success."'* All of this threat-
ening of fire and slaughter was placed not in the platform,
but in the resolutions; it was obviously an attempt at facing
both ways, and as such is justified by men who subsequently

io6 JOHN BROWN

became radical antagonists of all who favored slavery.* The
convention also ignored the Legislature's action in appoint-
ing October i as the day for the election of a Territorial dele-
gate to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and fixed upon October 9
as the proper day for this election ; the returns from this vot-
ing were subsequently ordered turned over to the "Territorial
Executive Committee," instead of to the Legislature. This
"Executive Committee," also a creation of the Big Springs
Convention, and the first Free State steering committee
appointed by a delegate convention to take charge of Free
State affairs, was headed by Charles Robinson as chairman,
with Joel K. Goodin as secretary, and had among its twenty-
one other members Martin F. Conway and John Brown, Jr."
Finally, it was at this Big Springs meeting that James H.
Lane first made his mark as a Kansas political leader; to his
eloquence is attributed the saving of the convention from
a dangerous split, in that he brought about its approval of
the preliminary Constitutional convention at Topeka.^* As to
Lane's attitude on the negro, John Brown, Jr., has testified
to Lane's saying in Lawrence, about this time: "So far as the
rights of property are concerned I know no difference between
the negro and a mule."" Later, however. Lane switched
about on this as on other issues.

The two elections for Territorial delegate took place as
scheduled. At the pro-slavery one on October I , General J . W,
Whitfield, who had represented Kansas in the national Legis-
lature during the three months of the Thirty-third Congress
remaining after his election on November 30, 1854, received
2721 out of 2738 votes cast, the Free State men abstaining
from the polls. The Howard Committee pronounced 857 of
these votes illegal after only a partial examination of the
returns.'* Eight days later, with conditions reversed, Reeder
received 2849 Free Soil votes.'* His election was, of course,
ignored by the Territorial Governor, Shannon. When Reeder
and Whitfield both presented themselves at Washington, the
latter was given his seat on February 4, 1856, only to be igno-

* For instance, R. G. Elliott, who played an important part in the Big Springs
Convention, declares that it faced "an important condition that had to be dealt
with practically and with conciliatory discrimination." — Kansas Historicd
Society Collections, vol. 8, p. 373.

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 107

miniously ousted on August 4, "o after the report of the How-
ard Committee had been received by the House of Repre-
sentatives.* The House could not, however, then bring itself
to seating Reeder. But his appearance at Washington and
his vigorous urging of his claims were the reason for the
appointment of the Howard Committee. This was in itself a
splendid triumph for the new policy of the Free State leaders
and their plan of an organized political demand upon Congress
for recognition. Not only are the majority and minority
reports of the Howard Committee, with their voluminous
sworn testimony, an invaluable record for the historian and
the best source of information as to the period in Kansas
history covered by its inquiry, but the publication of the
results thereof made a profound impression upon the country
at large, at a critical period in the Territory's history.

From the double election for delegates in October, 1855,
dates that duality in the political life of the strife-torn Terri-
tory which lasted for two years thereafter, and adds so much
to the perplexity of the cursory student of Kansas history
prior to its statehood. It is not only that there were hence-
forth two governments, but that they were supported by
factions bitterly hostile even to the extent of bloodshed.
There were always separate elections for the same ofhces at
separate places, with the double machinery of counting and
proclaiming the returns, and there was even a duality of man-
agement on the Free Soil side. The supplemental Topeka
Constitutional convention met, as determined by the prelim-
inary one of September 19, on October 23, and remained
in session until November 11. The Constitution it adopted
followed closely those of the other free States, providing
that there should be no slavery, and that no indenture of
any negro or mulatto made elsewhere should be valid within
the State. It fixed March 4, 1856, as the day for the meeting
of the General Assembly called for by the document, k" This
was submitted to the people on December 15 and ratified by
a vote of 1 73 1 for, to 46 against. The poll-books at Leaven-
worth having been destroyed by a pro-slavery mob, its vote is

* The Howard Committee reported that both Whitfield's and Reeder's elec-
tions were illegal, but that Reeder had received more votes of resident citizens
than Whitfield. See Howard Report, p. 67.

io8 JOHN BROWN

not recorded in the above total. "^ Thereafter the Free Soil
forces insisted that Kansas was an organized free State, when
demanding its admission into the Union. The convention,
before adjourning, appointed another Free State Executive
Committee, with the same secretary as had the Robinson
Committee, Joel K. Goodin, but with Lane, already a serious
rival of Charles Robinson, as its chairman, and five other
members. Lane, therefore, emerged from the Topeka con-
vention with additional prestige and thoroughly committed
to the Free State policies.

Out of all the meetings and conventions of the nine months
after the stolen March 30 election, there had come, then, greai
gains to the Free State movement. The liberty party had
been organized, leaders had been developed, and a regulai
policy of resistance by legal and constitutional measures
adopted. If counsels of compromise were still entirely too
apparent and too potent, the train of events which resulted
in Kansas's admission as a free State was well under Way.
Not unnaturally, the pro-slavery leaders at first regarded this
growing opposition with amusement or contempt. They were
still convinced in October, 1855, that Kansas was theirs by
right of their larger battalions and by right of conquest.
Moreover, Governor Shannon, with all his authority, was on
their side, and behind him the Federal Government. The
adoption of the Topeka constitution did, however, arouse
their anger; to this their answer was the organization in
November of their own party, which, with unconscious irony,
they dubbed the " Law-and-Order Party," at a meeting over
which Governor Shannon presided. "" Indeed, as their hitherto
triumphal overriding of Kansas began to meet a more and
more compact resistance, their mood began to change. The
leaders were quick to feel their power slipping from their
hands, particularly when, the first rush from Missouri being
over, the steady stream of emigration from the East made it
evident that they were being outnumbered. Their followers,
also, began to get out of hand; from overawing by a show
of force, it was easy to proceed to actual physical violence
ill the hope of terrifying the hated Free Soiler or of driving
him from the Territory. The temptation to crime was all
the greater since there was no non-partisan judicial machin-

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD 109

ery, and often no machinery at all outside of the Federal
judiciary."^

The Howard Committee found that, of all the crimes testi-
fied to during its sessions, an indictment had been found in
but one case."^ In that, the man charged with murder was
a Free Soiler, Cole McCrea by name, who had killed a pro-
slavery man, Malcolm Clark, at Leavenworth, on April 30,
1855, in a quarrel over certain trust lands and McCrea's right
to participate in and vote in a squatter's meeting. The first
of the long series of homicides which was to make of the Ter-
ritory in very truth a "bleeding Kansas," was not a political
one. It occurred near Lawrence on the first election day,
November 30, 1854, Henry Davis, a Border Ruffian from
Kentucky, being killed by Lucius Kibbey, of Iowa. Davis, in
an intoxicated condition, had assailed Kibbey with a knife. 1°'
Such an election-day crime might easily have occurred any-
where. The killing of Clark, "" in the following spring, be-
came, on the other hand, of marked political significance,
because of the treatment of his slayer, McCrea. The latter
was imprisoned at Leavenworth until late in November. The
injustice of his case lay in the court's denying to McCrea his
counsel, James H. Lane, because the latter would not take
the oath of allegiance to the pro-slavery Legislature, and in
McCrea's subsequent treatment, on September 17, when he
was brought before the grand jury of nineteen men sum-
moned by Chief Justice Lecompte and picked by him. Sixteen
were openly selected and three in private ; one of the nineteen
had been engaged with Clark in the attack on McCrea. For
a whole week Justice Lecompte endeavored to induce the jury
to indict McCrea, but in vain; the evidence was too strongly
in favor of McCrea for even this picked jury to find a true
bill against him. As the foreman refused to bring in a verdict
.of "not found," Justice Lecompte adjourned the court until
the second Monday of November, when McCrea was finally
indicted, after having been illegally deprived of liberty during
the intervening period. When, in November, he was able to
make his escape from jail and leave the Territory by way of
Lawrence, the inability of its citizens to offer him protection
added greatly to their stress of mind. The whole episode of
McCrea's confinement had roused the indignation of the Free

no JOHN BROWN

Soilers everywhere, convinced as they were that McCrea
had shot in self-defence.'"*

Even more stirring to the friends of liberty was the ill-
treatment of William Phillips, an active Free State lawyer
of Leavenworth, and a friend of Cole McCrea's, who was
present when Clark was killed. Phillips received notice on
April 30, from the pro-slavery vigilance committee appointed
on that date, to leave the Territory. On his refusal to go or
to sign a written agreement that he would leave Kansas, a
majority of the committee, so one of its members testified,
"voted to tar and feather him. The committee could get no
tar and feathers this side of Rial to; and we took him up there
and feathered him a little above Rialto, Missouri." i"* This
witness forgot to add that one side of Phillips's head was
shaved ; that after his clothes were stripped from him and the
tar applied, he was ridden on a rail for a mile and a half, and
then sold for one dollar by a negro auctioneer at the behest
of his tormentors. A public meeting at Leavenworth on May
19 heartily endorsed this treatment of "William Phillips, the
moral perjurer." "" The next day the Leavenworth Herald
said of the mob's work: "The joy, exultation and glorification
produced by it in our community are unparalleled . ' ' This out-
rage failed to daunt Phillips's courage ; he stayed in Kansas,
only to die later at the hands of his pro-slavery enemies. As
John Brown was leaving Ohio for Kansas, a similar experience
befell the Rev. Pardee Butler at Atchison. His pro-slavery
fellow citizens, on August 16, placed him on a raft and shipped
him down the Missouri, throwing stones at him and his
queer craft as the current bore him away. His forehead
was ornamented with the letter R ; and the flags on his raft
bore the inscriptions, "Greeley to the rescue, I have a nigger; "
"Eastern Aid Express;" and "'Rev. Mr. Butler,' agent to
the Underground Railroad.""' The Squatter Sovereign, the-
Stringfellow newspaper, notified all the world that "the same
punishment we will award to all free-soilers, abolitionists and
their emissaries." In fact, one J. W. B. Kelly had already
encountered the hatred of the pro-slavery leaders, for in the
first week of August he was severely thrashed and ordered
out of town for holding Abolition views. "" Yet Butler re-
turned to Atchison, as Phillips did to Leavenworth, only to

IN THE WAKE OF THE WAR CLOUD iii

meet a graver fate. Another clergyman, the Rev. William C.
Clark, was assaulted on a Missouri river steamer in Septem-
ber, for avowing Free State beliefs that seemed to his assail-
ants to call for physical punishment."'

As John Brown crossed the boundary between Missouri
and Kansas, on October 4, these outrages were still agitating
the Territory and causing men everywhere to arm. That the
pro-slavery election of October i had passed off peacefully,
although fraudulently, had reassured no one; within five days
the Free Soilers were to hold their own election and thus
begin a Free Kansas governmental structure. Would their
lawless Border Ruffian neighbors permit this without addi-
tional bloodshed and violence? Many a Free Soil settler who
had found his way into Kansas only in the face of outspoken
Missouri hostility, enduring privation if not starvation on the
way, because of his being a Yankee,* envied the little Brown
colony their rich supply of arms and ammunition. Upon
John Brown, the apostle of the sword of Gideon, and his mili-
tant sons, outspoken in their defiance of slavery and its laws,
each separate crime by a Missourian made a deep and last-
ing impression. Without loss of time their settlement was to
become known on both sides of the border as a centre of
violent resistance to all who wished to see human slavery
introduced into the Territory. Indeed, three days after his
arrival at his destination, October 9, he and his sons went to
the election for a Free State delegate "most thoroughly armed
(except Jason, who was too feeble) but no enemy appeared,"
so John Brown wrote his wife on October 14, adding, "nor
have I heard of any disturbance in any part of the Terri-
tory." 1" The spirit of the Massachusetts minute-men was
alive in Kansas.

* For instance, Samuel Walker, later a leading citizen of Lawrence, was not
allowed, in April 1855, to take his little girl, who was suffering from a broken
leg, into the house of a Baptist minister living on the Missouri border, because
he came from the North. Not until he reached the Shawnee nation could he, a
Yankee, get shelter at night for his injured child; food was obtained only at night
and from slaves. — Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 6, p. 253.

CHAPTER IV

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS

Fortunately, the Brown minute-men were not called upon
for active service for a few weeks after the arrival of their
arms, so that home-building could progress with some rapid-
ity, if one can really give the name of home to a shed open in
front, its roof of poles covered by long shingles, and its three
sides formed of bundles of long prairie grass pressed close
between upright stakes. Such a shanty sheltered John Brown,
Jr., his wife and some of the others, until late in February,
1856 ; while Jason's mansion during that period consisted only
of log walls and a roof of cotton sheeting. It had some advan-
tages, however, for Mrs. Jason Brown wrote, on November
25, 1855, that "the little house we live in now has no floor in
it, but has quite a good chimney in so that I can cook a meal
without smoking my eyes almost out of my head." * The per-
manent house-building was rendered slow and difficult by the
enfeeblement of two of the new arrivals, for Henry Thomp-
son and Oliver Brown succumbed to the prevailing ague in
November, and had not recovered by the end of the month.'
Nor had Jason when, late in November, there came the first
real call to arms of the Brown settlement, to which its poverty-
stricken owners had given at various times three names,
Brown's Station, Brownsville and Fairfield. Not one of them
has survived, and the last, from the beginning a misnomer,
was particularly so in November, 1855, not only because of
the exceptionally cold and bleak Kansas winter, but also
because of the reports of new and alarming crimes of which
Free State men were the victims.

The killings began in earnest on October 25, at Doniphan,
a town near Atchison, when Samuel Collins, owner of a saw-
mill at Doniphan, was shot by a pro-slavery man, Patrick
Laughlin by name, for political reasons. Laughlin, having
betrayed a secret Free Soil society known as the "Kansas
Legion," of which he had for a time been a member, was de-

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 113

nounced by Collins for his action. Like Montagues and Capu-
lets, they met armed the next morning, with friends or rela-
tions about them. When the fight was over, Collins lay dead;
Laughlin, seriously wounded, recovered and lived on in Atchi-
son, no effort being made to indict or punish him.^ If there
was possibly room for doubt as to whether Collins or Laugh-
lin assumed the offensive, there was none whatever in the
case of Charles Dow, a young Free State man from Ohio, who
was shot from behind and cruelly murdered near Hickory
Point, Douglas County, by Franklin N. Coleman, of Virginia,
a pro-slavery settler. This killing was due to a quarrel over
Coleman's cutting timber on Dow's claim, and was, therefore,
in its origin non-political. Yet out of it, too, came alarming
political consequences. After attending a Free Soil settlers'
meeting, called November 26 to protest against the crime
and to bring the murderer to justice, Jacob Branson, the Free
State man with whom Dow had been living, was arrested
that same night by the pro-slavery sheriff, Samuel J. Jones,
who resided at Westport, Missouri. Jones was postmaster of
Westport while also sheriff of Douglas County, Kansas, and
as will be seen, the gravest menace to the peace of the little
Lawrence community. The pro-slavery warrants upon which
Jones arrested Branson charged him with making threats and
with breaches of the peace. As Sheriff Jones and his posse,
which had then shrunk to fifteen men, neared Blanton's
Bridge with their prisoner, after having spent two hours
carousing at a house on the road, a party of fifteen Free State
men headed by Samuel N. Wood, of Lawrence, stopped them
with levelled guns. In the parley which followed, Branson
went over to his rescuers, who absolutely refused to recognize
the authority of Sheriff Jones, and told him that the only Jones
they knew was the postmaster at Westport. The rescuing
party reached Lawrence with Branson before dawn ; * there
it was at once recognized that the rescue would give the pro-
slavery men precisely the excuse they needed for an attack
upon the town. To an excited meeting of citizens held that
evening, Branson related his story. His auditors were, how-
ever, calm enough to decline all responsibility for the affair
in the name of Lawrence. Realizing that this action would
probably avail them but little, a Committee of Safety was

114 JOHN BROWN

organized to form the citizens into guards and to put the town
into a position of defence.^

Meanwhile, Sheriff Jones, after first despatching a messen-
ger to his own State, Missouri, for aid, appealed on advice
of others to the Governor of Kansas, who might naturally be
expected to have a greater interest in the affair than any one
in Missouri.^ Governor Shannon's interest was soon suffi-
ciently aroused for him to issue to the murderer, three days
after the crime, a commission as justice of the peace.' Being
also of a confiding nature, he was thus doubly prepared to
believe the exaggerated statements made to him by Sheriff
Jones, who declared that he must have no less than three thou-
sand men forthwith in order to carry out the laws,* as the Gov-
ernor might consider an "open rebellion" as having already
commenced, — this as a result of the rescue of a single prisoner,
in which not a shot was fired. But the Free State men having
destroyed three cabins, those of Coleman and two settlers
named Hargus and Buckley, and thereby frightened some
pro-slavery families into returning to Missouri, Jones was
easily able to make Governor Shannon think that an armed
band had burnt a number of homes, destroyed personal
property, and turned whole families out of doors.^ The Gov-
ernor at once ordered Major-General William P. Richardson
and Adjutant-General H. J. Strickler, of the newly organized
pro-slavery militia, to repair to Lecompton with as large forces
as they could raise, and report to Sheriff Jones to aid him
in the execution of any legal process in his hands.i" This was
the beginning of the so-called "Wakarusa War."

Thus the Branson rescue gave the extreme pro-slavery men
the opportunity they had been looking for to mass their forces
against Lawrence. But it is also probably true that, as Sheriff
Jones declared later in an afirdavit, he would have met with
violence had he attempted to serve any warrant in that town
where the citizens, armed with the much dreaded Sharp's
rifles, were daily drilling, and were outspoken in their refusal
to obey any of the laws enacted by the Pawnee Legislature.
Governor Shannon, being sworn to enforce the laws of the Ter-
ritory, had no other course open to him than to give aid to
Jones. But his pro-slavery feelings led him to swallow every
statement made to him by Jones. In the number of men he

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 115

called together, his willingness to have Missourians figure as
Kansas militia, and his readiness to assume that there was
a serious "rebellion" in Lawrence despite the assertions of
its citizens, he again showed his bias. Moreover, he cannot
altogether escape the charge of duplicity, for, while he never
modified his orders of November 27 to his generals, he wrote
to President Pierce the next day that the sherilT had called
on him for more troops than were really needed, that "five to
eight hundred men" would be enough. If his excuse for this
inconsistency is his belief that his generals could not raise
more than five or six hundred men, instead of the three thou-
sand Jones asked for, he certainly did not make it plain to
the citizens of Kansas that he wanted the smaller number.
Again, while he subsequently testified that he had never
dreamed that any one would go to Missouri for men to rein-
force Jones, he made not the slightest effort to reprove any one
for having done so, or to send back those citizens of Missouri
who were there in the belief that he had summoned them.
True, he wrote to Pierce that the reinforcing of Jones by
sufficient citizens of the Territory to enable him to execute
his processes "is the great object to be accomplished, to avoid
the dreadful evils of civil war." " But he lifted no finger to
prevent when there swarmed into Kansas the same men who
had already invaded Kansas three times in order to stuff or
steal the ballot-boxes, and were now only too happy to encamp
near Lawrence with guns in their hands under the sanction
of the government. His subsequent defence that after the
arrival of the Missourians he deemed it best "to mitigate an
evil which it was impossible to suppress, by bringing under
military control these irregular and excited forces," '■^ reads
oddly enough. He did beg help of Pierce, and did try his best
to call out the United States troops under Colonel E. V. Sum-
ner at Fort Leavenworth, to aid him in preventing an attack
on the citizens of Lawrence, who he had at the same time de-
clared could best be subdued by citizens of Kansas reinforcing
Sheriff Jones ! In other words, he now asked Colonel Sumner
to protect Lawrence from Jones and his men. But Sumner
refused.

Altogether, Governor Shannon claimed, two hundred and
fifty Kansas militia rendezvoused near Franklin on the Waka-

ii6 JOHN BROWN

rusa, a small tributary of the Kansas River, south of Lawrence.
But this statement rests on his assertion alone; most students
of this period agree that not many more than fifty Kansans
joined Major-General Richardson and Adjutant-General
Strickler." Of the Missourians, the first company to appear
at Franklin and go into camp as Kansas militia was one of
fifty men from Westport, Missouri. At Liberty and Lexing-
ton, Missouri, two hundred men with three pieces of artillery
and one thousand stand of arms were quickly brought to-
gether and sent into Kansas." Brigadier-General Lucien J.
Eastin, commander of the Second Brigade of Kansas Militia,
was also editor of the Leavenworth Herald, and with the aid
of his presses not only ordered his own "brigade" to assem-
ble at Leavenworth on December i , but circulated the follow-
ing appeal throughout the Missouri border counties:

TO ARMS! TO ARMS! I

It is expected that every lover of Law and Order will rally at
Leavenworth, on Saturday Dec. i, 1855, preparedto march at once to
the scene of the rebellion, to put down the outlaws of Douglas County,
who are committing depredations upon persons and property, burn-
ing down houses and declaring open hostility to the laws, and have
forcibly rescued a prisoner from the Sheriff. Come one, come all!
The laws must be executed. The outlaws, it is said, are armed to
the teeth and number 1000 men. Every man should bring his rifle
and ammunition and it would be well to bring two or three days'
provisions. Every man to his post, and do his duty.'^

Many Citizens.

A letter purporting to come from Daniel Woodson, the Sec-
retary of the Territory, urging Eastin to call out the Platte
County, Missouri, Rifle Company, "as our neighbors are
always ready to help us," and adding "do not implicate the
Governor whatever you do," was subsequently denounced
to the Howard Committee as a forgery by Mr. Woodson
when under oath." It did much, however, to infuriate the
Kansans, and was effectively used in the East as proof of
Shannon's and Woodson's betrayal of Kansas. The highest
estimate of those who assembled to besiege Lawrence is one
by Sheriff Jones of eighteen hundred ; it is generally believed
that twelve hundred is the more accurate figure." Atchison

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 117

was, of course, conspicuous in urging on the invasion. Speak-
ing at Platte City on December i, in his usual bombastic
style, he said : "

' ' Fellow Citizens : We have done our duty. We have done nothing
but our duty. Not you — not me — but those that have gone into
Kansas to aid Governor Shannon to sustain the law and put down
rebellion and insurrection. 250 men are now on the march and
probably 500 more will go from the County of Platte. Why are you
not with them — you and you? I wish that I was with them at
their head. ..."

In St. Louis, on the other hand, the Intelligencer, on Decem-
ber I, took a very different view of Missouri's duty from that
of Atchison :

"... The people of Missouri are not the ones to be called on to
back up the iniserable political puppets that Frank Pierce shall
send out from the Eastern States to play the fool and introduce
bloodshed and anarchy in Kansas. Now, let Pierce reap the fruits
of his imbecility. Let not the people of Missouri, by any urgent
appeal or cunning device, be drawn into the internal feuds of Kan-
sas. It looks very much as if there were a preconcerted effort to
do this very thing. ... It does seem to us that one of the devil's
own choicest humbugs is exploding in the call on Missouri for
'help.'"

Naturally, this hastily gathered together "army" lacked
cohesion and discipline ; according to anti-slavery descriptions,
its members were far gone in drink and supported themselves
by pillaging the neighborhood. Andreas, the most reliable of
Kansas historians, states that they were in the "delirium
coming from exposure, lack of food, and plentiful supplies of
strong drink," and this is the tenor of all contemporary Free
Soil accounts." In the Lexington, Mo., Express of December
7, on the other hand, two citizens of that town reported, after
having visited the pro-slavery forces, that all the men were
"comfortably fixed, with plenty of provisions and all were in
high spirits and anxious for a fray. . . . The arrangements
were good, and the most perfect order and decorum were
preserved at all times. The sale of liquor was prohibited."
Some of the weapons of this "noble and gallant set of fellows"
were proved before the Howard Committee to have been
stolen from the United States Arsenal at Liberty, Mo., which

Ii8 JOHN BROWN

arms the Border Ruffians, with surprising carelessness, failed
to return when the Wakarusa "war" was over.^"

The citizens of Lawrence, on hearing of the coming of the
Missourians, were content neither with sending away Branson
and his rescuers, nor with organizing their citizens as guards,
nor with fortifying the town and smuggling a howitzer from the
North through the enemy's lines. A general call was sent out
in all directions to Free State men in Kansas to come to the
rescue of Lawrence." The settlers rallied in response, arriving
alone and in squads, on foot, on horseback and in wagons, regu-
larly armed companies coming from Bloomington, Palmyra,
Ottawa Creek and Topeka. Naturally, it was the opportunity
for which the Brown minute-men had been longing. It was
not until December 6, however, that authentic news reached
them of what was going on, and that their aid was asked.
John Brown, Jr., was on the way to Lawrence on horseback
to ascertain the facts, when the runner who was summoning
the countryside met him. What happened then, John Brown
himself described to his wife and children at North Elba in
a long letter dated December i6, 1855:

"On getting this last news it was at once agreed to break up at
Johns Camp & take Wealthy, & Jonny to Jason's camp (some Two
Miles off) ; & that all the men but Henry, Jason & Oliver should
at once set off for Lawrence under Arms ; those Three being wholly
unfit for duty. We then set about providing a little Corn-Bread;
& Meat, Blankets, Cooking utensils, running Bullets & loading all
our Guns, Pistols etc. The Five set off in the Afternoon, & after
a short rest in the Night (which was quite dark), continued our
march untill after daylight next Morning when we got our Break-
fast, started again; & reached Lawrence in the Forenoon, all of us
more or less lamed by our tramp. On reaching the place we found
that negotiations had commenced between Gov. Shannon (haveing
a force of some Fifteen or Sixteen Hundred men) & the principal
leaders of the Free-State men ; they having a force of some Five
Hundred men at that time. These were busy Night & day fortify-
ing the Town with Embankments ; & circular Earthworks up to the
time of the Treaty with the Gov, as an attack was constantly looked
for; notwithstanding the negotiations then pending. This state of
things continued from Friday until Sunday Evening. On the Even-
ing we left a company of the invaders of from Fifteen to Twenty-
five attacked some Three or Four Free-State men, mostly unarmed,
killing a Mr. Barber from Ohio wholly unarmed. His boddy was
afterward brought in; & lay for some days in the room afterward

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 119

occupied by a part of the company to wh we belong; (it being
organized after we reached Lawrence.) The building was a large
unfinished Stone Hotel; in which a great part of the Volunteers
were quartered ; & who witnessed the scene of bringing in the Wife
& other friends of the murdered man. I will only say of this scene
that it was Heart-rending; & calculated to exasperate the men ex-
ceedingly; & one of the sure results of Civil War. After frequently
calling on the leaders of the Free-State men to come & have an
interview with him, by Gov. Shannon ; & after as often getting for
an answer that if he had any business to transact with anyone in
Lawrence, to come & attend to it; he signified his wish to come into
the Town; & an escort was sent to the Invaders' Camp to conduct
him in. When there the leading Free-State men finding out his
weakness, frailty & consciousness of the awkward circumstances
into which he had really got himself; took advantage of his Coward-
ice, & Folly; & by means of that & the free use of Whiskey; & some
Trickery; succeeded in getting a written arangement with him
much to their own liking. He stipulated with them to order the pro-
slavery men of Kansas home; & to proclaim to the Missouri invaders
that they must quit the Territory without delay ; and also to give up
Gen. Pomeroy a prisoner in their camp; which was all done; he also
recognizing the Volunteers as the Militia of Kansas, & empowering
their Officers to call them out whenever in their discretion the safety
of Lawrence or other portions of the territory might require it to be
done. He Gov. Shannon gave up all pretension of further attemp
to enforce the enactments of the Bogus Legislature, & retired sub-
ject to the derision & scoffs of the Free-State men (into whose hands
he had committed the welfare & protection of Kansas); & to the
pity of some; & the curses of others of the invading force. So ended
this last Kansas invasion the Missourians returning with flying
Colors, after incuring heavy expences; suffering great exposure,
hardships, & privations, not having fought any Battles, Burned
or destroyed any infant towns or Abolition Presses; leaving the
Free-State men organized & armed, & in full possession of the Ter-
ritory; not having fulfilled any of all their dreadful threatenings,
except to murder One unarmed man; & to commit some Roberies
& waste of propperty upon defenceless families, unfortunately in
their power. We learn by their papers they boast of a great vic-
tory over the Abolitionists; & well they may. Free-State men
have only hereafter to retain the footing they have gained; and
Kansas is free. Yesterday the people passed uppon the Free-State
constitution. The result, though not yet known, no one doubts. One
little circumstance connected with our own number showing a little
of the true character of those invaders : On our way about Three
Miles from Lawrence we had to pass a bridge (with our Arms &
Amunition) of which the invaders held possession; but as the Five
had each a Gun, with Two large Revolvers in a Belt (exposed to
view) with a Third in his Pocket; & as we moved directly on to the

120 JOHN BROWN

Bridge without making any halt, they for some reason suffered
us to pass without interruption ; notwithstanding there were some
Fifteen to Twenty-five (as variously reported) stationed in a Log-
House at one end of the Bridge. We could not count them. A Boy
on our approach ran & gave them notice. Five others of our Com-
pany, well armed; who followed us some Miles behind, met with
equally civil treatment the same day. After we left to go to Law-
rence until we returned when disbanded ; I did not see the least sign
of cowardice or want of self-possession exhibited by any volunteer
of the Eleven companies who constituted the Free-State force & I
never expect again to see an equal number of such well-behaved,
cool, determined men; fully as I believe sustaining the high char-
acter of the Revolutionary Fathers; but enough of this as we intend
to send you a paper giving a more full account of the affair. We
have cause for gratitude in that we all returned safe, & well, with
the exception of hard Colds; and found those left behind rather
improving." ^^

It would be hard to add anything to this admirable summary
of the close of the Wakarusa " war." That it was temperate
and did not overemphasize the part played by the Missouri-
ans appears from the opinion of John Sherman and William
A. Howard, of the Howard Committee, who affirmed that:

"Among the many acts of lawless violence which it has been the
duty of your Committee to investigate, this invasion of Lawrence is
the most defenceless. A comparison of the facts proven with the
official statements of the officers of the government will show how
groundless were the pretexts which gave rise to it. A community in
which no crime had been committed by any of its members, against
none of whom had a warrant been issued or a complaint made, who
had resisted no process in the hands of a real or pretended officer,
was threatened with destruction in the name of 'law and order,'
and that, too, by men who marched from a neighboring State with
arms obtained by force and who at every stage of their progress vio-
lated many laws, and among others the Constitution of the United
States.

"The chief guilt must rest on Samuel J. Jones. His character is
illustrated by his language at Lecompton, when peace was made.
He said Major Clark and Burns both claimed the credit of killing
that damned abolitionist, (Barber) and he did n't know which ought
to have it. If Shannon hadn't been a damned old fool, peace would
never have been declared. He would have wiped Lawrence out.
He had men and means enough to do it."^^

John Brown's company comprised others than himself and
his four sons, Frederick, Owen, Salmon and John, Jr., and was

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 121

well named the "Liberty Guards." He himself received here
for the first time the historic title of Captain, and the original
muster roll of his company, still preserved, gives the facts as
to its composition and service : ^*

"Muster Roll of Capt. John Brown's Company in the Fifth Regi-
ment, First Brigade of Kansas Volunteers, commanded by Col.
Geo. W. Smith, called into the service of the people of Kansas to
defend the City of Lawrence, in the Territory of Kansas from
threatened demolition by foreign invaders. Enrolled at Osawatomie
K. T. Called into the service from the 27th day of November, A. D.
1855, when mustered, to the 12 th day of December, when discharged.
Service, 16 days. Miles travelled each way, 50. Allowance to each
for use of horse $24.

" Remark — One keg of powder and eight pounds of lead were
furnished by William Partridge and were used in the service."

Age
John Brown sen. Capt. 55

Wm. W. Up De Graff ist Lieut. 34

Henry H. Williams 2nd " 27

Jas. J. Holbrook 3rd " 23

Ephraim Reynolds 1st Sergt. 25

R. W. Wood 2nd " 20

Frederic Brown 3rd " 25

JohnYelton 4th " 26

Henry Alderman ist Corp 55

H. Harrison Up De Graff 2nd Corp 23

Dan'l W. CoUis 3rd Corp 27

Wm. Partridge 4th " ^ 32

Amos D Alderman 20

Owen Brown 31

Salmon Brown 19

John Brown, jr. 34

Francis Brennen 29

Wm. W. Coine 19

Benj. L. Cochren 24

Jeremiah Harrison 22

This muster roll was certified to as correct "on honor" by
George W. Smith, Colonel commanding the Fifth Regiment
Kansas Volunteers, but it will be noted that it gives the Lib-
erty Guards credit for at least nine days more service than
they were entitled to according to John Brown's own story.
So does the honorable discharge of John Brown, Jr., which
was countersigned not only by Colonel Smith, but also by
J. H. Lane as General, First Brigade, Kansas Volunteers, and

122 JOHN BROWN

"C. Robinson, Maj. Gen'l.," in that it dates his service from
November 27. This apparently was the date of entry into
service fixed for all the volunteers of this quaint "army,"
with its elaborate organization and high titles. ^^ As a matter
of fact, the active service of the Liberty Guards comprised
only Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th of December, dur-
ing which time the peace negotiations were under way. They
remained in Lawrence until the I2th or later, when the other
companies also left for their homes.

In his narrative of what happened during his brief partici-
pation in the siege of Lawrence, Brown slurs over his own
part in the proceedings, which was sufficiently conspicuous
to make him well known to all who were in the threatened
town. "I did not see Brown's entry into Lawrence," writes
R. G. Elliott, at the time an editor of the Kansas Free State,
"which was the first introduction of the mysterious stranger
into the Kansas drama, but I do know that his grim visage,
his bold announcements, with the patriarchal organization
of his company, gave him at once welcome entrance into the
military counsels of the defenders, and lightened up the gloom
of the besieged in their darkest hour." ^^ Here in Kansas, too,
John Brown made upon every one the impression of age,
owing to the stoop of his shoulders, the measured step, the
earnestness and impressiveness of his manner, and other
signs of seniority and natural leadership, even though there
was in his endurance, the resoluteness of his movements, and
the promptness of his speech, nothing approaching senility.*
The title of captain fitted him readily; where he was, he led.
And so at Lawrence, — hardly arrived, he was at the fortifi-
cations. "There," reports an eye-witness, James F. Legate, he
"walked quietly from fort to fort and talked to the men sta-
tioned there, saying to each that it was nothing to die if their
lives had served some good purpose, and that no purpose could
be higher or better than that which called us to surrender
life, if need be, to repel such an invasion."" Even though
the discussion of peace was on, he suggested the gathering of
pitchforks for use in repelling a possible charge, ^s The peace
itself produced in him only anger, when first he heard of it.

^^ * The Lawrence Herald 0/ Freedom reported the arrival on December 7 of
"Mr. John Brown, an aged gentleman from Essex County, N. Y."

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 123

It was not only, as he wrote to Orson Day on reaching home,
that there was "a good deal of trickery on the one side and
of cowardice, folly, ^'drunkenness on the other;" =9 there was
suppression of facts as well. For the actual terms of peace,
involving as they did a compromise, were at first concealed
by the leaders in expectation of dissatisfaction. As a matter
of fact, the agreement pledged the Free State men to "aid in
the execution of the laws when called upon by proper author-
ity;" its equivocal concluding sentence read: "We wish it
understood, that we do not herein express any opinion as to
the validity of the enactments of the Territorial Legislature."
This was signed on December 8.

An open-air meeting was held on Saturday afternoon about
the still unfinished Free State Hotel, where a box outside the
door served as a platform and door-sill, there being no steps
but planks leading to the ground. Shannon, Robinson and
Lane, fresh from signing the treaty, harangued the crowd.
What the terms of the treaty were, they would tell no one
that day. Shannon expressed his satisfaction at the discovery
that he had misunderstood the people of Lawrence, that they
were really estimable and orderly persons. He hoped now to
preserve order and get out of the Territory the Missourians,
who, he remarked, were there of their own accord. Lane's
eloquence evoked cheers; he declared that "any man who
would desert Lawrence until the invaders below had left the
Territory, was a coward." Governor Robinson was pacific, dis-
creet and brief. He stated, according to William Phillips, the
Tribune's correspondent, that "they had taken an honorable
position." '" But the crowd was not so sure of that. A rumor
had been circulating that the treaty was in reality a complete
surrender on the part of Robinson and Lane, and an accept-
ance of the hated pro-slavery laws. John Brown, boiling over
with anger, mounted the shaky platform and addressed the
audience when Robinson had finished. He declared that
Lawrence had been betrayed, and told his hearers that they
should make a night attack upon the pro-slavery forces and
drive them out of the Territory. "I am an Abolitionist," he
said, "dyed in the wool," and then he offered to be one of ten
men to make a night attack upon the Border Ruffian camp.
Armed and with lanterns, his plan was to string his men along

124 JOHN BROWN

the camp far apart. At a given signal in the early morning
hours, they were to shout and fire on the slumbering enemy.
"And I do believe," declared John Brown in telling of it,
"that the whole lot would have run." " Lane, too, had been
secretly in favor of an attack, but peace councils prevailed.'^
John Brown was pulled down by friends and foes from the
improvised rostrum, and, according to one responsible witness,
it was Robinson who stamped out the incipient mutiny by
calmly assuring the crowd that the unpublished treaty was a
triumph of diplomacy."

That same evening. Shannon, Lane and Robinson spoke to
thirteen pro-slavery captains at Franklin, who grumblingly
accepted the treaty and gave their word that they would
endeavor to induce the Missourians to return quietly to their
homes. '^ But the Missouri leaders were not all pleased at
the outcome. General Stringfellow declared, in a speech in the
camp near Lecompton, that "Shannon has played us false;
the Yankees have tricked us." Sheriff Jones's regret that
Shannon did not wipe out Lawrence has already been recorded.
Atchison was for peace, — there are doubts if he really was
a fighting man when it came to the point. "If you attack
Lawrence now," he declared, "you attack it as a mob, and
what would be the result? You would cause the election
of an Abolition President and the ruin of the Democratic
party." '* If there was some grumbling among the rank and
file at Shannon's ordering them to return to their homes, the
cold storm of that Saturday night helped on the dissolution
of the pro-slavery forces. Many left on Monday morning,
worn, sleepless and frozen. Moreover, the whiskey had given
out, and this, with the fear of a possible Free State attack,
sent more and more home, until on Tuesday only a few par-
ties remained. Finally, these few gave in to the inevitable and
departed, says Phillips, "cursing Shannon and the 'cunning
Abolitionists.' " ^^

As for Shannon, the tricky Robinson had again taken ad-
vantage of his weakness by inviting him and Sheriff Jones
to a peace gathering in the Free State Hotel on Sunday even-
ing, December 9, despite protests from Lane and others that
no such enemy of Lawrence as Jones should be given the
right hand of fellowship. In the course of the evening, when

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 125

the Governor was thoroughly enjoying himself, Robinson
rushed up to him and informed him that the Missourians
had left the Wakarusa and were marching on Lawrence. He
insisted that the Governor should at once sign a paper author-
izing him and Lane to defend the town. The Governor, after
a little urging, put his name to the following document:

To C. Robinson and J. H. Lane, commanders of the Enrolled
Citizens of Lawrence:

You are hereby authorized and directed to take such measures
and use the enrolled forces under your command in such manner,
for the preservation of the peace and the protection of the persons
and property of the people of Lawrence and its vicinity, as in your
judgment shall best secure that end.

Wilson Shannon.

Lawrence, Dec. 9, 1855.

His Excellency thereupon returned to the delights of the
reception and, says Phillips, "on that eventful Sunday, if
Governors ever get drunk, his supreme highness, Wilson the
First, got superlatively tipsy." ''

When he came to his senses and discovered that he had
given legal authority to arm and fight to the leaders of that
very mob to suppress which he had called out the Territorial
militia, he was properly chagrined. The force which he had
denounced for assembling to upset the laws was now duly
empowered by him to act at its own discretion without limit
of time. Naturally, the Governor was indignant. In a long
letter to the Kansas correspondent of the New York Herald,
dated December 25, 1855, he sought to justify himself and
explain his predicament, saying : '*

"... amid an excited throng, in a small and crowded apartment,
and without any critical examination of the paper which Dr. Rob-
inson had just written, I signed it; but it was distinctly understood
that it had no application to anything but the threatened attack
on Lawrence that night. ... It did not for a moment occur to me
that this pretended attack upon the town was but a device to obtain
from me a paper which might be used to my prejudice. I supposed
at the time that I was surrounded by gentlemen and by grateful
hearts, and not by tricksters, who, with fraudulent representations,
were seeking to obtain an advantage over me. I was thelast man
on the globe who deserved such treatment from the citizens of
Lawrence."

126 JOHN BROWN

It is evident that the Governor had reason for his anger.
Dr. Robinson's successful stratagem can best be justified by
that familiar theory that everything is permissible in war.
This has excused many a more heinous crime ; but Shannon
could properly have urged that, as peace had been signed, this
trick was indefensible even as a war measure.

The treaty was, from the beginning, an ill-fated document,
and met the destiny double-dealing compromises deserve.
As events turned out, the Missourians had their revenge on
Lawrence and Robinson within seven months. Though he
afterwards became a respected citizen of Lawrence, Shannon
was, until his removal in 1856, despised by its residents and
berated by the pro-slavery men in and out of the Territory,
who sought to saddle upon him the blame for their undeniable
defeat. "The discomfited and lop-eared invaders," wrote
Horace Greeley in the Tribune of December 25, in character-
istic style, "pretend that against their wish they were kept
from fighting by the pusillanimity of Gov. Shannon." Thus
ended the Wakarusa "war." It had cost but one life, that of
Barber, the unexpected sight of whose dead body in the Free
State Hotel had done much to make Shannon see some justice
in the Free Soil cause. Barber had been shot from behind,
probably by the United States Indian agent. Major George
E. Clarke, for the sole reason that he had been visiting Law-
rence. " I have sent another of those damned Abolitionists to
his winter quarters," boasted Clarke. But Colonel James N.
Burns, of Missouri, disputed his right to this honor, and, since
both fired at the same moment, no one has ever been able to
decide to whom Barber owed his death wound. ^*

The night after his abruptly ended speech John Brown
passed with James F. Legate. He asked Legate for minute
particulars of the latter's ten years of experience in the South,
so far as it related to the slaves, asking especially if they
had any attachment for their masters and would fight for
liberty. Then they had an argument as to the nature of
prayer; it ended by Brown's praying for power to repel the
slaveholders, the enemies of God, and for freedom all over
the earth."

On December 14, Brown, his four sons and their half-
starved horse, which dragged the heavily laden wagon, were

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 127

back and settled at Brown's Station, apparently reconciled
to the treaty, for on that date he wrote to Orson Day of his
over-sanguine belief that "the Territory is now entirely in
the power of the Free State men," and of his confident expec-
tation that the "Missourians will give up all further hope of
making Kansas a Slave State." *^

The result of the vote on the Free State Constitution, on
December 15, further helped to make John Brown contented
with the Shannon compromise. Apparently there was a^peace-
ful winter before them, and this proved to be the case. Its
very inclemency made further hostile operations impossible,
and left the Kansans free to keep body and soul together as
best they could. John Brown himself utilized the opportunity
to go a number of times into the enemy's country in January
in search of supplies, without meeting with any unpleasant
experiences. On January i, 1856, he wrote from West Point,
Missouri, " In this part of the State there seems to be but little
feeling on the slave question." *^ As the temperature had
ranged from ten to twenty-eight degrees below zero in the
week previous to his writing, and there were in places ten
inches of snow on the ground, it is obvious that the need of
pork and flour which made Brown venture forth must have
been pressing. By the 4th he was back in Osawatomie again,
for on the 5 th he was appointed chairman of a convention
in Osawatomie, called for the purpose of nominating State
officers. His son, John Brown, Jr., was duly nominated for
the Legislature, and, so Henry Thompson reported the next
day, "the meeting went off without any excitement and to
our satisfaction." ^' This was but an index of the place the
Browns had already made for themselves, a recognition of
their dominating characters. Further proof of this is to be
found in a letter from Mrs. John Brown, Jr., to her mother-in-
law. Writing on January 6, 1856, she says: "You need not in
the least feel uneasy about your husband, he seems to enjoy
life well, and I believe he is now situated so as to do a great
deal of good ; he certainly seems to be a man here who exhibits
a great amount of influence and is considered one of the most
leading and influential minds about here. . . . Our men have
so much war and elections to attend to that it seems as though
we were a great while getting into a house." "

128 JOHN BROWN

On the 8th of January, John Brown went back to Missouri
for more provisions, accompanied by Salmon and driving the
faithful horse for the last time, since that hard-worked ani-
mal must needs be sold to a pro-slavery master, that the pro-
visions might be obtained for the oxen to bring home, and to
replace moneys belonging to S. L. Adair used by John Brown
on the road to Kansas. " By means of the sale of our Horse
and Waggon: our present wants are tolerably well met; so
that if health is continued to us we shall not probably suffer
much," wrote Brown to his wife on February i, on his return
from a third trip to Missouri. He reported also that the
weather continued very severe: "It is now nearly Six Weeks
that the Snow has been almost constantly driven (like dry
sand) by the fierce Winds of Kansas." There were also serious
alarms of war: "We have just learned of some new; and shock-
ing outrages at Leavenworth : and that the Free-State people
there have fled to Lawrence: which place is again threatend
with an attack. Should that take place we may soon again
be called upon to ' buckle on our armor ; ' which by the help
of God we will do : when I suppose Henry, & Oliver will have
a chance." *^ He added, however, that in his judgment there
would be no general disturbance until warmer weather. In
this view he was as correct as he had previously been wrong
in estimating the results of the Wakarusa "war."

The Leavenworth troubles, to which he referred, were so
serious as to be taken on both sides as ending the truce signed
by Shannon. They grew out of the election, on January 15,
of members of the Free Soil Legislature and the State officers
under the Topeka Constitution. Just as the Missourians had
refrained from interfering with the Free State voting in the
adoption of the Constitution, they now permitted the January
15 election to pass off in peace, except at Leavenworth, where
the pro-slavery mayor forbade the holding of the election. It
took place clandestinely and was then adjourned to Easton,
twelve miles away, where it was again held on the 17th, de-
spite the disarming and driving away of some of the Free State
voters. That night there was severe fighting between the two
sides, in which the pro-slavery men lost one killed and two
wounded, while two of the Free Soilerswere injured. Later,
the pro-slavery forces, which had been reinforced by a militia

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 129

company, the Kickapoo Rangers, captured Captain Reese P.
Brown, the leader of the Free State men, as he was returning to
Leavenworth. Him the Rangers mortally wounded the next
day, when he was unarmed and defenceless." "These men,
or rather demons," reported Phillips to the Tribune, "rushed
around Brown and literally hacked him to death with their
hatchets." Not an effort was made to punish the murderers,
though they were well known to the Territorial authorities.
Some of the pro-slavery newspapers, like Stringfellow's Squat-
ter Sovereign, upheld the deed, that journal calling for "War!
War!!" *' The 'Leacveniworth Herald justified the murder and
gave notice to the Free State men that: "These higher-law
men will not be permitted longer to carry on their illegal and
high-handed proceedings. The good sense of the people is
frowning it down. And if it cannot be in one way it will in
another." ^* The Kansas Pioneer of Kickapoo was an acces-
sory to Brown's murder before the fact, for on the morning
of the crime it had published this appeal: "Sound the bugle
of war over the length and breadth of the land and leave
not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treach-
erous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle
balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous
hearts." «

But the black-hearted Free Soilers voted nevertheless, cast-
ing, in the entire Territory, 1628 ballots for Mark W. Dela-
hay, the candidate for delegate to Congress who had just
previously, on December 22, 1855, had a taste of Missouri
intolerance, when the printing-presses of his Leavenworth
newspaper, the Territorial Register, were thrown into the Mis-
souri River because of the Free Soil sentiments of its editor.'"
For Charles Robinson as Governor there were cast 1296 votes.
This result increased the anger of the pro-slavery men. On that
day of balloting. Sheriff Jones wrote to Robinson and Lane,
asking whether they had or had not pledged themselves to aid
him with a posse in serving a writ. Their answer was only
that they would make no "further resistance to the arrest
by you of one of the rescuers of Branson, ... as we desire
to test the validity of the enactments of the body that met
at the Mission, calling themselves the Kansas Legislature, by
an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States." "

I30 JOHN BROWN

Tones and the Border Ruffians thereupon insisted that the
Free State men had violated the truce of Lawrence, and
deemed themselves no longer bound by it. By February 4,
ex-Senator Atchison was again threatening the sword of ex-
termination, or rather the bowie-knife: "Send your young
men . . . drive them [the AboHtionists] out. . . . Get ready,
arm yourselves; for if they abolitionize Kansas you lose
$100,000,000 of your property. I am satisfied I can justify
every act of yours before God and a jury," ^2 — words that
could not have gone unread at Brown's Station, where they
received and pored over "Douglas newspapers" as well as
Free Soil ones. The election had passed off quietly enough
at Osawatomie, John Brown, Jr., being duly elected to the
Legislature, but shortly afterwards the minute-men led in the
expulsion of a claim- jumper, as a result of a settlers' meet-
ing held on January 24 to consider the case. Henry Thompson,
John Brown, Jr., and his brothers Oliver and Frederick were
the committee which, well armed, knocked the man's door in
and threw his belongings out. Henry Thompson's part was
watching, with a loaded revolver in his hand, every action of
the claim-jumper until he disappeared in the distance, vowing
vengeance on each and every Brown."

Itwas also on January 24, that President Pierce sentaspecial
message to Congress which aroused the ire of every Free State
settler, and of every anti-slavery man the country over. In it,
yielding to the influence of Jefferson Davis, and of Governor
Shannon, who was then in Washington, he squarely took the
side of the South, proclaiming the pro-slavery Shawnee Legis-
lature legal, whatever election frauds might have been com-
mitted, and denouncing the acts of the Free State men as
without law and revolutionary in character, "avowedly so
in motive," which would become "treasonable insurrection"
if they went to the "length of organized resistance by force to
the fundamental or any other Federal law, and to the author-
ity of the general government." On February 11 the Presi-
dent went even further, and issued a proclamation which de-
prived the Free State forces of all hope of any aid from the
Federal Government. It placed the entire authority and power
of the United States on the side of pro-slavery men, and of all
those persons who opposed the Topeka movement. While

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 131

condemning the lawless acts of both sides, he placed the Fort
Riley and Fort Leavenworth troops at Shannon's behest,
except that he was cautioned not to call upon them unless it
was absolutely necessary to do so to enforce the laws and keep
peace; even then this proclamation must be read aloud before
the soldiers acted. Naturally, the South rejoiced and the
hearts of the defenders of Lawrence were downcast. The
Squatter Sovereign was emboldened on February 20 to say:
"In our opinion the only effectual way to correct the evils
that now exist is to hang up to the nearest tree the very last
traitor who was instrumental in getting up, or participating
in, the celebrated Topeka Convention."

John Brown had anticipated this action of Pierce's, and his
feelings sought relief on the same day in the following letter
to Joshua R. Giddings, the well-known anti-slavery Congress-
man from Ohio:

OsAWATOMiE Kansas Territory 20th Feby 1856
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings

Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir,

I write to say that a number of the United States Soldiers are
quartered in this vicinity for the ostensible purpose of removing
intruders from certain Indian Lands. It is, however, believed that
the Administration has no thought of removing the Missourians
from the Indian Lands; but that the real object is to have these
men in readiness to act in the enforcement of those Hellish enact-
ments of the (so called) Kansas Legislature; absolutely abominated
by a great majority of the inhabitants of the Territory; and spurned
by them up to this time. I confidently believe that the next move-
ment on the part of the Administration and its Proslavery masters
will be to drive the people here, either to submit to those Infernal
enactments; or to assume what will be termed treasonable grounds
by shooting down the poor soldiers of the country with whom they
have no quarrel whatever. I ask in the name of Almighty God; I
ask in the name of our venerated fore-fathers; I ask in the name of
all that good or true men ever held dear; will Congress suffer us to
be driven to such ' ' dire extremities ' ' ? Will anything be done ? Please
send me a few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with your
public life, and a slight personal acquaintance incline and embolden
me to make this appeal to yourself.

"Everything is still on the surface here just now. Circumstances,
however, are of a most suspicious character.

Very Respectfully yours,

John Brown."

132 JOHN BROWN

Before this earnest letter was far on its way there came an
important answer to its appeal, and to the proclamation of
the President, in the organization of the "National Republi-
can Party" at Pittsburgh, February 22, 1856, the name of
Charles Robinson being placed on its National Committee
as representative of Kansas, on the motion of S. N. Wood,
leader of the Branson rescuers, who was present as a delegate,
On account of the terrible weather " — the snow was often
eighteen inches deep, and the thermometer as low as twenty-
seven degrees below zero — the mails were slow in leaving
Kansas, ^^ and it was not until March 17 that Mr. Giddings
assured his Osawatomie correspondent:

"... you need have no fear of the troops. The President will
never dare employ the troops of the United States to shoot the citi-
zens of Kansas. The death of the first man by the troops will involve
every free State in your own fate. It will light up the fires of civil
war throughout the North, and we shall stand or fall with you. Such
an act will also bring the President so deep in infamy that the hand
of political resurrection will never reach him. . . .""

Governor Shannon returned to Kansas on March 5, ex-
ulting in his having the regular troops commanded by Colo-
nel Sumner under him, especially as that excellent officer I
had refused to come to his aid during the Wakarusa "war"
without express authority from Washington.** The day be-
fore, on March 4, the Free State Legislature had duly as-
sembled as required by the Topeka Constitution, without
the slightest regard for Pierce's message or proclamation."
It remained in session only eleven days, receiving Governor
Robinson's inaugural address, electing Governor Lane and
ex-Governor Reeder Senators of the United States in the
event of the State's being admitted to the Union, preparing
a memorial to Congress begging that admission, and receiv-
ing the report of the Territorial Executive Committee, headed
by Lane, which then went out of existence. Adjournment
was on March 15 until July 4, when it met again, only to
be dispersed by Colonel Sumner's troopers. John Brown,
Jr., was in attendance at the session in March; his father
recorded this in a letter to North Elba on March 6, in
which he also complained of the lack of any letters or news
because of deep snows and high water, so that, he wrote, " we

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 133

have no idea what Congress has done since early in Jany:" «»
John Brown, Jr., did not, however, arrive in Topeka, with
Henry H. Williams, a fellow Representative, until the morn-
ing of the 5th, so Mr. Williams wrote on the 7th to a friend.
His letter shows that there was considerable trepidation
among the arriving delegates in view of Pierce's position.
"Shannon," he wrote, "is at the Big Springs on a bender I
learn. . . . Mr. Brown has been put on a committee to se-
lect six candidates from which three are to be elected Com-
missioners to revise and codify the laws and rules of prac-
tise. . . .""

Only fifteen of the Topeka legislators signed the memorial
to Congress asking for the admission of Kansas as a Free
State under the Topeka Constitution, a copy of which was
attached to their petition. John Brown, Jr., was of course one
of the fifteen.^2 He was also one of the committee of three
to draft resolutions in regard to the murder of Captain R. P.
Brown. He figured also as a member of the standing com-
mittee on vice and immorality, and presented a petition from
fifty-six ladies of Topeka praying for the enactment of a law
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor,'^ for all of
which legislative service, and for his subsequent partaking in
the meetings of the committee to select the commissioners
to codify the laws,^* this unfortunate man paid a terrible
price within the next three months. Soon after John Brown,
Jr., returned, his father, Frederick and Oliver Brown, and
Henry Thompson went on a surveying tour to the west of
their settlement, fixing the boundaries of their lands for the
Indian neighbors they had learned to respect and like. The
Ottawas, having found that many whites were settling on
their lands, held a council and asked the Browns to trace their
southern boundary. "There is a good many settlers on their
lands," wrote Henry Thompson to his wife, "that will prob-
ably have to leave — mostly proslavery." ** This prospect
could hardly have raised the Browns in the esteem of these
neighbors and their sympathizers. This surveying party was,
however, one of those experiences in Kansas which made
Henry Thompson write to his wife a month later, April 16,
when the outlook for the Free State had grown gloomy
enough : ." It is a great trial to me to stay away from you, but

134 JOHN BROWN

I am here, and feel I have a sacrifice to make, a duty to per-
form. Can I leave that undone and feel easy, and have a
conscience void of offence? Should I ever feel that I had not
put my hand to the plough and looked back?"*« It was
not only the cause which held Mr. Thompson in Kansas, but
his very great regard for John Brown. Upon Brown's plans
he later wrote to his wife, would depend his own, "until
School is out." "

April 1 6 was also the date of a settlers' meeting of momen-
tous importance to Osawatomie. It attracted widespread at-
tention elsewhere in the Territory, since it was the first open
defiance, after the President's proclamation, by any body of
men, of the Shawnee Legislature's laws. The call for the gath-
ering was signed by twenty-three citizens, who wished to con-
fer as to the proper attitude to be taken toward the officials
appointed by the Shawnee Legislature to assess property and
collect taxes. Richard Mendenhall presided, and there was
full discussion of the situation.*' No less ominous a figure
than the Rev. Martin White presented the Border Ruffian
side. The Rev. S. L. Adair, brother-in-law of John Brown,
recorded many years later that "Martin White stood up for
the laws, and charged rebellion and treason on all who de-
clined to obey them. Captain John Brown was for regarding
the Legislature as a fraud and their laws as a farce and their
slave code as wicked, and if an attempt was made to enforce
them to resist it." Martin White put it differently. "I went,"
he declared in a speech to the Kansas Legislature in Febru-
ary, 1857, when telling of his experiences with the Free State
men, "to one of their meetings and tried to reason with them
for peace, but in so doing I insulted the hero [John Brown]
of the murder of the three Doyles, Wilkinson and Sherman,
and he replied to me and said that he was an 'Abolitionist
of the old stock — was dyed in the wool and that negroes
were his brothers and equals — that he would rather see this
Union dissolved and the country drenched with blood than
to pay taxes to the amount of one-hundredth part of a mill.'"
As to his own position, Mr. Adair testified: "I had said but
little. But the question was put directly: was I ready to obey
the laws or to take up arms against them? I replied I should
not regard the authority of those laws, yet was not ready

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 135

to take up arms against them but was ready if necessary to
suffer penalties." This was the spirit in which the Free Soil
pioneers were meeting the situation created by Pierce's sid-
ing with the pro-slavery forces. They were willing to "suffer
penalties" for their beliefs in the good old New England
fashion, and were in no wise to be swerved from their sense of
duty by the thundering of the highest authority in the land.
As a result of the discussion and the appointment of a com-
mittee of five to prepare them, the following resolutions were
adopted by the meeting:

Resolved, That we utterly repudiate the authority of that Legis-
lature as a body, emanating not from the people of Kansas, but
elected and forced upon us by a foreign vote, and that the officers
appointed by the same, have therefore no legal power to act.

Resolved , That we pledge to one another mutual support and aid
in a forcible resistance to any attempt to compel us with obedience
to those enactments, let that attempt come from whatever source it
may, and that if men appointed by that legislature to the office of.
Assessor or Sheriff, shall hereafter attempt to assess or collect taxes
of us, they will do so at the peril of such consequences as shall be
necessary to prevent same.

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to inform such
officers of the action of this meeting by placing in their hands a copy
of these resolutions.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions with the proceedings
of this meeting be furnished to the several papers of Kansas with
a request to publish the same.

Richard Mendenhall, Pres't.'"'

Oscar V. Dayton, Sec'ry.

One cannot but admire the courage which prompted this
spreading abroad of the decision of the meeting. It was, how-
ever, soon to have dire results for the little settlement itself.

About this same time there had come to a neighboring pro-
slavery settlement of the Shermans, one of whom was known
as "Dutch Henry," a Judge, Sterling G. Cato, to hold court
in the name of the bogus Territorial Legislature. The Browns
soon heard that he had issued warrants for their arrest,
either because of their participation in the meeting of April
16, or because of prior dislike of them as Abolitionists. John
Brown sent to the court his son Salmon and Henry Thompson,
"to see," so Salmon Brown affirms, "if Cato would arrest us.
We went over ten miles afoot and stood around to see if they

136 JOHN BROWN

would carry out their threat. I did not like it. I did not want
to be in the middle of a rescue. That's a risky situation. I
thought father was wild to send us, but he wanted to hurry up
the fight — always." '" This ruse having failed, Brown himself
went with his armed company to see what was going on. The
result of this he described to his brother-in-law, Adair:

Brown's Station, 22A April, 1856.
Dear Brother Adair : —

. . . Yesterday we went to Dutch Henrys to see how things were
going at Court, my boys turned out to train at a house near by.
Many of the volunteer Co. went in without show of arms to hear
the charge to Grand Jury. The Court is thoroughly Bogus but the
Judge had not the nerve to avow it openly. He was questioned on
the bench in writing civilly but plainly whether he intended to
enforce the Bogus Laws or not ; but would give no answer. He did
not even mention the so called Kansas Legislature or name their
acts but talked of our. laws ; it was easy for any one conversant with
law matters to discover what code he was charging the jury under.
He evidently felt much agitated but talked a good deal about hav-
ing criminals punished, &c. After hearing the charge and witnessing
the refusal of the Judge to answer, the volunteers met under arms
passed the Osawatomie Preamble & Resolutions, every man voting
aye. They also appointed a committee of Three to wait on the
Judge at once with a coppy in full; which was immediately done.
The effect of that I have not yet learned. You will see that matters
are in a fair way of comeing to a head.

Yours sincerely in haste,

John Brown"

James Hanway, a leading Free State settler, has recorded
the following additional details of this occurrence :

"John Brown, Jr. left the court room, and in the yard he called
out in a loud voice: 'The Pottawattomie Rifle Company will meet
at the parade ground,' and the company consisting of some thirty
men, marched off to meet as ordered. There was not a disrespectful
word uttered, nor were there deadly weapons displayed on the oc-
casion — there were doubtless a few pocket pistols, but they were
hid from sight. Between dark and daylight. Judge Cato and his
officials had left; they journeyed toward Lecompton in Douglas
County, which was the Bastile of the proslavery party. This was
the first and the last of the proslavery court holding their sessions
in this section of the country." '^

This incident, Mr. Hanway added, got into the pro-slavery
newspapers in a magnified and distorted form, and became

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 137

a standing charge against the Free State party of Kansas as
one of their heinous crimes, for Judge Cato portrayed him-
self thereafter as a court compelled to flee for safety.

About the time that Judge Cato's court was in session at
Dutch Henry's, there arrived in the neighborhood a com-
pany of Southerners who had come to the Territory from
Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, in order to make it
a slave State. John Brown lost no time in discovering their
objects, and he did it in a manner which has become famous
in Kansas. " Father," says Salmon Brown, "had taken advan-
tage of his knowledge of surveying, and, as a surveyor, ran a
line through their camp. He had been surveying the old In-
dian lands, previously, for the Indians. The Border Ruffians
never suspected us to be anything but friends, for only pro-
slavery men got government jobs then, and surveyors were
supposed -to be government officers. So they talked freely
about their plans and one big fellow said : ' We came up here for
self first and the South next. But one thing we will do before
we leave, we'll clear out the damned Brown crowd.' " ^' This
last was an empty boast, as time showed. But the arrival of
these men in the neighborhood of Osawatomie was but an-
other sign of the impending crisis. They were part of the force
raised by Major Jefferson Buford at Eufaula, Silver Run and
Columbus, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama, as the result
of an appeal for Southern emigrants to settle in Kansas.'*
The organization was military, but the men went unarmed as
far as Kansas City, where they arrived between four and five
hundred strong, late in April. On May 2 they passed into Kan-
sas with weapons in plenty, scattering for a time in search
of homes, only to be called upon in short order as a military
force. But before this came to pass, they had added greatly
to the terror of the Free Soil settlers by their swashbuckling
marches through the Territory. Just as they left Montgomery,
Buford's men had been marched to the bookstore of the
Messrs. Mcllvaine in that city, where each man received a
Bible. "But," says a correspondent of the Tribune, "on the
trip up the river [from St. Louis] the Bibles were thrown
promiscuously into a large bucket on the hurricane deck, and
the company were below handling an article known among
gamblers as a 'pocket testament.'" " "The people of West-

138 JOHN BROWN

port were glad to see Buford's men come; they were doubly
glad when they went away finally," reported an old citizen
of Westport, and there is little doubt that they got out of
hand soon after entering Kansas, for as settlers they were
a dismal failure. When their service in the sack of Lawrence
was over, after pillaging and roaming for a while, they gradu-
ally began to return to the South.

Here those who returned afforded fresh proof of the inabil-
ity of that section to colonize its favorite institution as far
North and West as Kansas. A number enlisted in the United
States troops in Kansas, while others went over to the Free
State men and thus became traitors to the cause of human
bondage. Still others stayed for months near Westport, a
veritable plague to their friends.'^ In short, the expedition
was a disastrous failure politically, economically and finan-
cially; it served no other purpose than to aid in the wanton
destruction of part of the city of Lawrence and the throwing
into chains of the Free State leaders.

Beyond doubt the arrival of Buford's men raised high the
spirits of the Southern leaders, who fondly believed that there
would now be sufficient emigration of their own people to
offset the continuing stream of arrivals from New England,
notably a remarkable colony from N6w Haven, one hundred
strong, who settled sixty-five miles above Lawrence on the
Kansas River and, unlike Buford's men, knew how to plough
and plant. "Our town," wrote a correspondent of the Trib-
une from Lawrence on April 19, "is crowded with immigrants
from all parts. A number of companies are camping here,
anxiously awaiting their exploring committees, who have
gone out to look at different localities. There is a large com-
pany from Ohio — one from Connecticut — one from New
Hampshire, and others are daily arriving. . . . The emi-
grants of this season are much superior to those of last year.
They come in the face of difficulties and are prepared to meet
them." " But fears of a similar tide of Southerners impelled
Horace Greeley to impassioned editorials urging the youth
of the Northeast to save Kansas, by force of arms and de-
votion to principle.'^ A correspondent of the Albany Journal,
writing on March 16 from a steamboat on the Mississippi,
gave this picture of the outlook:

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 139

" I have just come up from Tennessee and let me assure you that
the South are now moving in earnest in sending settlers to Kansas.
I heard a letter from Kansas . . . read at a Kansas meeting, in
which the South were (sic) urged to send their men immediately.
'The only hope,' the writer stated, was in sending on enough to
whip the d — d Abolitionists before the ist of July, or the Territory
would be lost. The writer says : ' There are now at least three Abo-
litionists to one friend of the South, and if anything is done it must
be done quickly.'"

A Tribune correspondent in Kansas City wrote late in April
that: "It is unquestionable that the South has gone into the
' actual settlement ' business to a great extent this Spring." "
Horace Greeley himself wrote to his newspaper from Wash-
ington on March i :

"The Free-State men of Kansas now in this city have letters from
various points in that embryo State down to the i8th and 19th ult.
Their general tone implies apprehension that a bloody collision is
imminent. The Border Ruffians have been raised entirely off their
feet by Pierce's extraordinary Messages, which they regard as a com-
plete endorsement of all their past outrages and an incitement to
persevere in their diabolical work. It is believed by our friends that
the organization of the State Government at Topeka the coming
week will be made the pretext for a raid, and if possible a butchery,
at the hands of the Slavery party. . . ."*°

It was only in the time set that this prognostication was
wrong. But meanwhile, as James Redpath has recorded,
the acts of the Washington allies of Atchison, Stringfellow
and Jones were daily making of the Free State pioneers more
and more ardent advocates of freedom, and unifying them in
their determination to resist to the last the pro-slavery ag-
gressions :

"I have heard men who were semi-Southerners before, declare
with Garrison:

" T am an Abolitionist!

I glory in the name ! ' —
since Kansas was invaded. I have heard others hint that even
Garrison himself was rather an old fogy, because he does not go jar
enough in opposition to Slavery. 'The world does move.' " ''

In April the pro-slavery net began to tighten around Law-
rence. Sheriff Jones had reappeared there on April 19, 1856,
to vex anew its citizens. He had decided that it was time for

140 JOHN BROWN

him to attempt again the arrest of those persons who five
months previously had taken from him his prisoner Branson.
Jones's thumbs had begun to itch for S. N. Wood, the leader
of the rescuers; he was, therefore, quite willing to take Rob-
inson and Lane at their word, that they would not resist the
enforcement of a writ by proper authority, and quite ready
to take ^ chance — if he did not court it — of again em-
broiling the citizens of Lawrence with the Territorial authori-
ties. Jones easily found Wood and arrested him, but in the
crowd which speedily gathered he lost his prisoner. ^^ Jones
reappeared the next day and called on the citizens to help
him serve the four warrants he had in his hands. The crowd
refused, saying, 'Take the muster roll, Jones, we all resist.' "
Jones then personally laid hands on Samuel F. Tappan, who
thereupon struck the sheriff in the face. This was sufiScient
resistance to satisfy the sheriff, who forthwith left, returning
three days later, on April 23, with First Lieutenant James Mc-
intosh, of the First Cavalry, and ten troopers. With the aid
of these regulars he arrested six citizens on the extraordi-
nary charge of contempt of court, in that they had declined to
aid him in serving his warrants, — an unheard-of form of the
crime of disrespect to the judiciary. His prisoners were put
in a tent to await the pleasure of their captor. That evening,
while Jones was sitting in his tent, with his shadow outlined
against it by the light within, he was shot from without and
gravely wounded by James N. Filer,^^ a young New Yorker,
though the blame long rested on Charles Lenhart, a printer,
subsequently prominent in the attempt to rescue Brown
from his Virginia prison. Lenhart was undoubtedly outside
the tent when Jones was shot, and as he was a reckless fellow,
suspicion not unnaturally fell upon him.

Nothing more unfortunate could have happened for the
citizens of Lawrence than the shooting of Jones, even though
his life was spared, for the pro-slavery newspapers at once
announced his death, and called upon their readers to avenge
his murder. None of the regrets that the citizens of Law-
rence expressed could undo the injury inflicted by Filer's
shot. They held a mass meeting on April 24, addressed by
Reeder, Robinson, Grosvenor P. Lowry and others, who con-
demned the crime in proper terms as cowardly and dastardly."

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 141

But their expressions went for naught. It was precisely the
overt act needed to give Jones and his men the appear-
ance of being hindered in the performance of their duty, and
assaulted because of their devotion to it. The scene of the
shooting — Lawrence — was particularly satisfactory to the
pro-slavery party, since, it enabled them to concentrate anew
their enmity upon that hated town. "We are now in favor
of levelling Lawrence and chastising the Traitors there con-
gregated, should it result in total destruction of the Union,"
declared the Squatter Sovereign on April 29, 1856. A week
later. May 6, "still keeping alive the falsehood of Jones's
death, it thus incited to murder:

"When a proslavery man gets into a difficulty with an Abolition-
ist let him think of the murdered Jones and Clark, and govern him-
self accordingly. In a fight, let our motto be, 'War to the knife,
and knife to the hilt;' asking no quarters from them and granting
none. Jones' Murder Must Be Revenged!! "

Appeals like this speedily bore fruit. On the next day,
J. N. Mace, a Free State settler, who had testified before the
Howard Committee then sitting at Lawrence, was shot in the
leg by two men, who, thinking him dead, went off, rejoicing
in his hearing that there was "more abolition bait for the
wolves." '* At an indignation meeting held in Lawrence on
May 2 to consider Mace's case, Governor Robinson again
soothed the perturbed feelings of the multitude, urged his
listeners to go on making laws of their own, but not to give
way to any spirit of revenge, and deprecated the attack upon
Sheriff Jones as cowardly and base." April 30 had been a
fateful day for the Rev. Pardee Butler, who, undeterred by
his being sent down the Missouri on a raft by his neighbors,
returned then to Atchison. He was immediately stripped and
cottoned (for lack of feathers), turned loose on the prairie,
and a committee of three was appointed to hang him the
next time he came to Atchison. His sole offence, according
to his own testimony, was his telling the Squatter Sovereign
that he was a Free Soiler and meant to vote accordingly.^'
On May 19 there fell, shot in the back near Blanton's
Bridge, John Jones, who, according to the existing evidence,
gave up his life merely because he, a boy of twenty, was

142 JOHN BROWN

accused of being an Abolitionist.*' Three young men, Charles
Lenhart, John Stewart and John E. Cook (who subsequently
died on a Virginia gibbet, after John Brown), rode out toward
the scene of this crime as soon as it was reported. On their
way to Blanton's Bridge they fell in with several Missourians,
who subsequently testified that they were fired upon first and
one of them wounded ; that in self-defence they shot and killed
Stewart. Lenhart and Cook stated that Stewart hailed the
Missourians by asking them where they were going. Their
reply was a shot and Stewart fell dead. The Free State men
with him were convinced that Coleman, the murderer of Dow,
had in this case also fired the fatal shot.'"

Judge Lecompte next stirred up the Territory in behalf of
the pro-slavery cause by charging the grand jury in session at
Lecompton during the second week in May that all the laws
passed by the Shawnee Legislature were of United States
authority and making; that, therefore, all who "resist these
laws, resist the power and authority of the United States;
and are therefore, guilty of high treason." * "If," he con-
tinued, laying down a principle new in American judicial
procedure, "you find that no such resistance has been made,
but that combinations have been formed for the purpose of
resisting them, and that individuals of influence and notori-
ety have been aiding and abetting in such combinations, then
must you find bills for constructive treason." At once, with-
out hearing any witnesses, the grand jury indicted Reeder,
Robinson, Lane, George W. Brown, George W. Deitzler,
Samuel N. Wood, Gains Jenkins and George W. Smith on the
charge of treason." It is in keeping with this performance that
Governor Robinson, who, with his wife, had left Lawrence at
its most critical moment, in order to lay the true situation be-
fore the friends of Free Kansas in the East, should have been
taken from the steamer Star of the West at Lexington, Mis-
souri, on May lo, on the charge of fleeing from an indict-
ment, when that indictment was not reported by the jury until

* "Section 3, Article 3, of the Constitution of the United States says: "Trea-
son against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or
in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall
be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two witnesses to the same
overt act, or on Confession in open Court."

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 143

a week after his detention. ^^ Better evidence of the way the
whole machinery of justice was being prostituted to pro-
slavery ends could hardly be produced; it resulted in Robin-
son's being taken to Leavenworth, where he remained until
his release on bail of five thousand dollars, on September 10,
after four months' confinement. Ex-Governor Reeder escaped
from Kansas in disguise, after having claimed protection in
vain as a witness before the Howard Committee, and having
told the United States deputy marshal that any attempt to
take him prisoner would be attended with serious results.^'
Lane escaped Robinson's fate only by happening to be in
Indiana on a visit. The Free Soil movement was thus deprived
of its leaders. But the complaisant Lecompton grand jury
was not content with indictment for treason; it took the still
more extraordinary course of recommending the abatement
as nuisances of the Lawrence Free Soil newspapers, The
Herald of Freedom and The Kansas Free State. Charging that
the Free State Hotel in Lawrence had been built for use as a
fortress as well as a caravansary, the jurors expressed their
opinion that its demolition was desirable.

Ex-Governor Reeder's refusal to submit to arrest was a
greatly desired opportunity to another Jones, the United
States marshal for Kansas Territory, I. B. Donaldson. He at
once issued (on May 1 1 ) the following proclamation :

To The People of Kansas Territory :

Whereas, certain judicial writs of arrest have been directed to me
by the First District Court of the United States, etc., to be executed
within the county of Douglas: and, whereas, an attempt to execute
them by the United States Deputy Marshal was violently resisted
by a large number of citizens of Lawrence; and as there is every
reason to believe that any attempt to execute these writs will be
resisted by a large body of armed men:

Now, therefore, the law-abiding citizens of the Territory are com-
manded to be and appear at Lecompton as soon as practicable, and
in numbers sufficient for the proper execution of the law.°^

Like Sheriff Jones, Donaldson believed most of the law-
abiding citizens of Kansas lived in Missouri, for his proclama-
tion went first to the border towns and to Leavenworth and
Atchison, the strongest pro-slavery settlements in Kansas.'*
Before the proclamation was known to the Free Soil settlers,

144 JOHN BROWN

the Border Ruffians had begun to assemble in the neighbor-
hood of Lawrence, stopping travellers, patrolling the roads,
even pillaging, as if they were a conquering army, and gener-
ally in high feather, for this time they felt certain of their
prey, since it had been officially delivered over to them. The
United States Court had issued the warrants; the United
States marshal had called out them instead of the United
States troops, who, after their visit in numbers to Lawrence
under Colonel Sumner upon the shooting of Jones, had been
allowed to return to their garrisons. In the Wakarusa " war,"
Shannon, not having power over the regulars, called eagerly
for their aid ; now that they were at his disposal, he refused to
send them to Lawrence for the protection of its citizens, as
the latter implored him to, or to urge Donaldson to use them
as his posse.* Whereas in the previous December Governor
Shannon had been willing to keep the peace, and eager to
arrive at a compromise, he was ready now to have the tables
turned upon those who had tricked him when in his cups,
well knowing what the outcome would be. " But so long," he
wrote to the Lawrence committee which begged protection of
him, "as they [the citizens of Lawrence] keep up a military
or armed organization to resist Territorial laws and the offi-
cers charged with their execution, I shall not interpose to
save them from the legitimate consequences of their illegal
acts."««

It was the van of Donaldson's forces which killed Stewart
and Jones. His band comprised, first, Buford's newly arrived
men, whom their leader hastily called together from their easy-
going search for home-sites, four hundred in all responding.
They represented in Donaldson's eyes, after being nineteen
days in Kansas, the "law-abiding citizens of the Territory."
General David R. Atchison, of Missouri, headed a Missouri
company, the Platte County Riflemen, with two pieces
of artillery; while the Kickapoo Rangers, who had hacked
Captain R. P. Brown to death, and other Kansas pro-slavery
companies eagerly joined the forces." Both the Stringfellows

* When President Pierce heard of Donaldson's plans, he was much worried,
and telegraphed to Shannon suggesting that the United States troops be used,
and then only after the marshal had met with actual resistance. The telegram
came too late to be of avail. See Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 4, p. 414.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 145

were there, ready to be in at the, death, and hoping that this
meant the extermination of the hated AboHtionists. About
seven hundred and fifty in all, this "swearing, whiskey-
drinking, ruffianly hord?,"^* who were there to uphold the
majesty of the law, appeared near Lawrence on May 21,
after a committee from there had vainly tried to induce
Marshal Donaldson to agree to a compromise by which the
town should be surrendered to Colonel Sumner and his cav-
alry regiment, to be held until the writs were served.'^ But
the serving of the warrants was not Donaldson's real purpose,
nor that of the men associated with him. The deputy mar-
shal. Fain, made two arrests in Lawrence without difficulty
or resistance, on the evening of May 20.1°'' Accompanied by
ten unarmed men, he returned at eleven o'clock the next
morning and summoned five citizens of Lawrence to join his
posse; they did so, and he then arrested George W. Deitzler,
George W. Smith and Gains Jenkins on the charge of treason.
They submitted cheerfully. While Fain was at the Free State
Hotel, he received a communication from the eight citizens
of Lawrence who were acting as a committee of public safety.
This committee, speaking for the entire town, acknowledged
the "constituted authorities of the Government," and stated
that they would "make no resistance to the execution of the
law National or Territorial." This submission was in vain.
Fain, having his prisoners in hand, announced to the Bor-
der Ruffians that he had peacefully accomplished his purpose,
but added that Sheriff Jones had writs yet to be served, and
that they could act as his posse if they desired.

With the utmost alacrity the invitation was accepted, but
no pretence of serving any writs was made. The Southerners
were stimulated by the oratory of Atchison, but recently
presiding officer of the United States Senate, who declared
among other things: "And now we will go in with our highly
honorable Jones, and test the strength of that damned Free
State Hotel. Be brave, be orderly, and if any man or woman
stand in your way, blow them to hell with a chunk of cold
lead." But they did not go in until the Free State men
had surrendered their arms to Jones, as further evidence of
good faith. Once in, there was no John Brown to counsel
resistance to them, no Lane to lead, and no Robinson to tern-

146 JOHN BROWN

porize. There was no real leader. The military company,
the Stubbs, was not in evidence. There were only two hun-
dred rifles and ten kegs of powder in all Lawrence. Many of
the citizens were either in arrest or in hiding to escape capture.
Many others had left town to save their families. So no de-
fence was attempted when the two newspaper offices were
destroyed and the types, papers, presses and books thrown
into the river. The Free State Hotel remained, however,
and the order of the court that it be "abated" was not yet
enforced. Here Major Buford again protested that he had
not come to Kansas to destroy property, and Atchison seems
to have been sobered some. But Jones wanted his triumph
complete, and the Free State Hotel was soon in flames, after
the pro-slavery cannon had sent thirty-two shot into it,
Atchison firing the first shot.'" "This," said Jones, "is the
happiest moment of my life." As the walls of the hotel fell,
he cried out in glee, "I have done it, by God, I have done
it," "^ and it in no wise troubled him that, when he dismissed
his drunken posse, as the hotel lay in ruins, it promptly robbed
the town, winding up by the burning of Governor Robinson's
house. The majesty of the law was upheld ; its flouting by
Free Soilers avenged.

The pro-slavery leaders and their disbanded followers left
the Territory exulting in their victory, and wholly unable to
realize that it was not only to be their defeat, but that they
had let loose a veritable Pandora's box of evil passions, and
finally inaugurated a reign of bloodshed, midnight assassina-
tion and guerrilla warfare. Besides, they had aroused the
whole North to fresh anger by the destruction of Lawrence,
at first reported to have been accompanied by heavy loss of
life. The inscriptions on their banners, "Southern Rights"
and "South Carolina" and

" Let Yankees tremble, abolitionists fall,
Our Motto is. Give Southern rights to all," ""

alone brought dozens of recruits to the Free State cause.
"From this time no further effort was required to raise
colonies. They raised themselves," records Eli Thayer, the
Worcester, Massachusetts, organizer of the Emigrant Aid So-
cieties. i»* The raiding of Lawrence put an arsenal of argu-

THE CAPTAIN OF THE LIBERTY GUARDS 147

ments into the hands of the new-born Republican party, and
fastened the nation's attention on the Territory. On the
day of the raid, Horace Greeley declared that the "bloody
collision in Kansas," which seemed to him " almost inevitable,"
would "hardly fail to shake the Union to its center." "•'

CHAPTER V
MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE

To his "Dear Wife and Children Every One," wrote John
Brown, "near Brown's Station, K. T., June, 1856," as fol-
lows: 1

"It is now about five weeks since I have seen a line from North
Elba, or had any chance of writing you. During that period we
here have passed through an almost constant series of very trying
events. We were called to go to the relief of Lawrence, May 22,
and every man (eight in all) except Orson [Day], turned out; he
staying with the women and children, and to take care of the cattle.
John was captain of a company to which Jason belonged ; the other
six were a little company by ourselves. On our way to Lawrence
we learned that it had been already destroyed, and we encamped
with John's company over night. Next day our little company left,
and during the day we stopped and searched three men. ... On
the second day and evening after we left John's men we encountered
quite a number of proslavery men, and took quite a number of pris-
oners. Our prisoners we let go ; but we kept some four or five horses.
We were immediately after this accused of murdering five men at
Pottawatomie, and great efforts have since been made by the Mis-
sourians and their ruffian allies to capture us. John's company soon
afterward disbanded, and also the Osawatomie men."

/ . . .

In this brief, equivocal fashion John Brown reported to the

absent members of his family that event in his life which made
him most famous in Kansas and has caused more discussion
than any other single event in the history of Kansas Territory.
Upon the degree of criminality, if any, which should attach
to John Brown for his part in the proceedings, the debate
in Kansas to-day is almost as bitter as at the time of the
crime, or when Brown's tragic end kindled the Kansas inter-
est in it anew. As one views Brown's conduct in the killing of
the five pro-slavery men on Pottawatomie Creek depends to a
large degree the place which may be assigned to him in history.
Certainly, without a clear appreciation of what happened on
the night of the 24th to the 25th of May, 1856, a true under-
standing of Brown, the man, cannot be reached. The actual

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 149

details have been veiled for nearly half a century in a mystery
which the confessions of one of the party only partially dis-
pelled, fortunately for the truth of history, there are two other
participants, Henry Thompson and Salmon Brown, still sur-
viving after this long stretch of time, who have now set forth
what happened. There are also many narratives of contempo-
rary witnesses available which, when weighed together, make
possible not only a real knowledge of the conditions prece-
dent to the Pottawatomie massacre, but of its effects upon
the Free Soil cause.

John Brown, Jr., was engaged in planting corn when the
messenger from Lawrence arrived. "Without delay," he re-
corded in a defence of his father,* "I rode to Osawatomie
with the word and then rallied the men of my company whose
homes were mostly on Pottawatomie and Middle Creeks."
His first lieutenant, Henry H. Williams, assisted him in this
work, and by six o'clock in the evening thirty-fpur armed
men met at the rendezvous, the junction of the Osawatomie
and California roads. "The 'Marion Rifles' and 'Pomeroy
Guards' from Osawatomie," narrated Williams,' in what is
truly most valuable contemporary testimony, since it was
written only two months after the event, while Williams was
still a prisoner at Leavenworth, "had promised to meet us
here by agreement, but only two men came, who reported
that another messenger from Lawrence had arrived and con-
tradicted the former report, and that, therefore, the Osawato-
mie companies would await further orders. The Pottawato-
mies, however, agreed to push on to Lawrence and ascertain
the facts for themselves. Accordingly we moved on, and two
miles from the Meridezene [Marais des Cygnes] we met a mes-
senger from near Lawrence who reported that the Border
Ruffians had taken the town without any resistance and were
razing it to the ground. This startling news was received in
silence by the company. Then the word ' onward ' was passed
along the line and although scarcely a word was spoken the
thoughts of every one could be read in his countenance. We
pushed on, and a messenger was dispatched to arouse the
settlers at Osawatomie. At Prairie City we learned that there
was no organized Free State force in Lawrence and that the
' Border Ruffians ' were in possession of Blanton's Bridge,

I50 JOHN BROWN

and had assembled in force at Lecompton. We concluded
to encamp at Prairie City and await reinforcements."

At this camp the company of John Brown, Jr., and Lieuten-
ant H. H. Williams remained until the next day, the 23d. Cap-
tain Shore and his Osawatomie company, together with the
"Pomeroy Guards," joined the camp, bringing details of the
sack of Lawrence and also the news that a force of four hun-
dred men under Buford was in camp a few miles to the east.*
That evening, hearing that Governor Robinson was being
taken, a prisoner, from Westport to Lecompton, guarded by
Border Ruffian^, the three companies moved to Palmyra (now
the prosperous town of Baldwin), then a little near-by settle-
ment, twelve miles from Lawrence, in order that they might
rescue the Free State leader if he were brought that way over
the Santa F6 trail.'' In their new camp they were joined by the
Marion Rifles, Captain Updegraflf. On the 24th, Captain John
Brown, Jr., went with a scouting party into Lawrence to view
the ruins.* His report and that of his men, that the citizens
of that ill-fated town had not united in defending themselves
against the common enemy, made the four companies at
Palmyra decide they could not fight Lawrence's battles alone.
"Accordingly," wrote Mr. Williams, "we broke up our camp,
each company returning to its respective locality, the men
dispersing to their homes." This homeward movement was
hastened by the arrival of thirteen soldiers of the First Cav-
alry under Second Lieutenant John R. Church, a young West
Pointer, whose official report of the meeting, dated May 26,
1856, has fortunately been preserved. Lieutenant Church,
after a long talk with John Brown, Jr., ordered him to dis-
band the camp in compliance with his (Church's) orders to
disperse all armed bodies he encountered, whether pro-slavery
or Free Soil.'

Curiously enough, the Pottawatomies returned to their
homes the next day under the command of a new captain,
Henry H. Williams, having deposed John Brown, Jr., on his
way back from Lawrence, because he had freed two slaves.'
"The arrival of those slaves in camp next morning caused a
commotion," so their liberator has recorded. "The act of free-
ing them, though attended by no violence or bloodshed, was
freely denounced, and in accordance with a vote given by a

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 151

large majority of the men, those freed persons, in opposition to
my expressed will, were returned to their master. The driver
of the team which carried them overtaking him on his way
to Wejitport, received a side-saddle as his reward." There
was still another reason why the men of John Brown, Jr.'s
company chose a new captain. On this same day, when the
company was near Ottawa Creek on its return, a rider came
tearing into camp — his horse panting and lathered with
foam — and without dismounting yelled out: "Five men have
been killed on Pottawatomie Creek, butchered and most
brutally mangled, and old John Brown has done it!" —
thus Jason Brown records it. "This information," he states,
"caused great excitement and fear among the men of our com- ,
pany and a feeling arose against John and myself which led
the men all to desert us." '

As John Brown himself wrote to his family, he and a small
party left his son's company the morning after their long
night tramp to Prairie City, on Friday, May 23. The cir-
cumstances kading up to his departure are thus set forth by
Jason Brown:

I
" Father coolied for our company. While he was cooking break-
fast, I heard him, Townsley and Weiner talking together. I heard
Townsley say: 'We expect to be butchered, every Free State set-
tler in our region,' and Townsley pleaded that help should be sent.
I heard their talk only in fragments. Then I heard father say to
Weiner: 'Now something must be done. We have got to defend our
families and our neighbors as best we can. Something is going to
be done now. We must show by actual work that there are two sides
to this thing and that they cannot go on with impunity.'" '°

Weiner also told Martin Van Buren Jackson, in the camp,
"that he, his man Benjamin and also Bondi, had been insulted,
abused and ordered to leave the county within three days, by
the Shermans and other pro-slavery parties living in the
neighborhood of Dutch Henry's Crossing; and that Dutch
Bill (Sherman), as he was called, was drunk and very abu-
sive. He said this was the second time they had been to his
place in the past few days, and he did not propose to stand
such treatment much longer." "

Moved by this and other provocations, John Brown acted
at once. " Pottawatomie," says Salmon Brown, "was resolved

152 JOHN BROWN

upon by father, supported by the leading men in Johnj's com-
pany — maybe a dozen — and by his own crowd. T'he plan
was thoroughly discussed there in camp, not before thje whole
company, but in the council thus selected." '^ August! Bondi,
a faithful follower of John Brown, remembers the ,' council
well, for Brown used to him practically the same words —
"Something must be done to show these barbarialns that
we, too, have rights," i' — which he had previously spoken
to Weiner and Townsley. It is clear that John Bnpwn did
reveal to the council the general outline of hisplap." "It
was now and here resolved that they, their aiders and .abettors,
who sought to kill our suffering people, should therpiselves be
killed, and in such manner as should be likely to c/ause a re-
straining fear," declares John Brown, Jr., and Salmeon Brown
testifies :

"The general purport of our intentions — some radical retalia-
tory measure — some killing — was well understood by the whole
camp. You never heard such cheering as they gave us when we
started out." They were wild with excitement and enthusiasm.
The principal man — tfie leader — in the council that resolved on
the necessity of Pottawatomie, — was H. H. Williams: I do not
know that I ought to tell this since he himself has not; but it is the
fact. He was wholly determined that the thing must be done. He
knew all those men on the Pottawatomie, better than any of us.
He lived among them — was familiar with all their characters. He
was now the most active of us all in urging this step. And not fif-
teen minutes before we left to go to Pottawatomie I saw him, my-
self, write out a list of the men who were to be killed and hand it to
father. This was on the crest of the wave of enthusiasm. Williams
was a little cautious, I always thought, even then. He was a first-
rate fellow; but he was too smart, even in enthusiasm, to go into a
thing like that, personally, when he could get someone else to do it
for him. Then, when it was all over, and he found how the people
down at home took it, he got scared. He had n't the backbone to
stand by his own mind, against popular opinion, — he went back
on his own radical measures, weakened, did not confess to his own
share in their origin, and counselled peace. In fact, he got scared.
Benjamin told me about this afterward. Williams wrote down the
names of the men whom, he said, it was necessary to pick off to pre-
vent the utter destruction of the whole community and handed the
paper to father. We started back, thereupon, for the Pottawatomie
country, which was the headquarters for the pro-slavery men, under
Judge Cato, for that region, to pick off the designated men promi-
nent in enforcing Border RufiSan laws." '°

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 153

About noon, John Brown selected for his party Henry
Thompson, Theodore Weiner, and four sons, Owen, Frederick,
Salmon and Oliver. In order to secure the use of his wagon,
John Brown went to James Townsley, of the Pottawatomie
Rifles, saying he had just heard trouble was expected on the
Pottawatomie. He asked Townsley whether he could not take
his team of grays and convey him with his sons back to Pot-
tawatomie. Townsley consented, and the departure was fixed
for two o'clock." The interim was devoted to the sharpen--
ing of some of the odd-shaped cutlasses, the gift of General
Lucius V. Bierce, of Akron, Ohio, that John Brown had brought
West with him, for use in border warfare. ^^ John Brown,
Jr., and Jason devoted themselves to the cutlasses, while a
boy, Bain Fuller, turned the grindstone; but Jason insists
that he had no idea of the real purpose of the expedition."
Seeing the grinding operation, George Grant remarked to
Frederick Brown: "That looks like business." "Yes," was
the reply, "it does." When Grant asked whether he might
not also ride back in Townsley 's wagon, Frederick Brown
consulted his father, only to return and report: "Father says
you had better not come."^" Bain Fuller, whose father had
received John Brown's word that the boy should not get into
trouble, was told to go home and to be sure to have witnesses
as to his whereabouts for that night. ^^ Before Townsley's
horses were ready and the cutlasses had received their edge,
a feeling came over some of the men in the canip that the
radical leader of the returning party might not act with
sufficient discretion. One of them went to John Brown, so
relates Judge James Hanway, and urged "caution." At this.
Brown, who was packing up his camp fixtures, instantly stood
erect and said: "Caution, caution, sir. I am eternally tired
of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word
of cowardice." " In the Kansas Monthly, for January, 1880,
Judge Hanway wrote: "I ventured to approach one of the
eight, and from him learned the program contemplated. In
fact, I received an invitation to be one of the party, and
being unwilling to consent before I learned the object, I
was made acquainted with the object of the expedition; it
shocked me."

With the shouts of their comrades in their ears, the party

154 JOHN BROWN

set ofif in Townsley's wagon, except Weiner, who, riding his
pony, gave them mounted escort as they retraced their way
over the road they had traversed in such haste and excite-
ment the night before. "As we turned back with the evil
news [the fate of Lawrence] and had just got to the top of
the hill south of the Wakarusa — the high ridge," says Salmon
Brown, "a man named Gardner came to us with the news of
the assault upon Senator Sumner of Bully Brooks,* — carry-
ing the message hidden in his boot. At that blow the men
went crazy — crazy. It seemed to be the finishing, decisive
touch." Two men have affirmed that they met the expedition
as it took its way toward what is now the little hamlet called
Lane. Captain J. M. Anthony and a squad of Free State men
encountered it near the residence of Ottawa Jones, and in
their surprise at seeing fighting men returning when Lawrence
was in distress, asked eagerly whither the men in the lumber
wagon were bound. "They gave us," says Captain Anthony,
"no answer except that they were going to attend to very ur-
gent business and would be right back to join us on the march
to Lawrence." ^^ Near sundown, between Pottawatomie and
Middle Creek, James Blood descried a wagon with a mounted
man alongside, going toward Pottawatomie Creek. As he
neared the wagon, John Brown rose in it and cried "Halt!"
Blood remembered afterwards that the men in the wagon
were armed with rifles, revolvers, knives and General Bierce's
short heavy broadswords, for John Brown had given him one
of these cutlasses when in Lawrence during the Wakarusa
excitement. Brown, Blood found to be very indignant that
Lawrence had been sacked without a shot being fired in its
behalf. He denounced the leading Free State men as cowards
or worse. "His manner," wrote Colonel Blood twenty- three
years later, "was wild and frenzied, and the whole party
watched with excited eagerness every word or motion of the
old man. Finally, as I left them, he requested me not to
mention the fact that I had met them, as they were on a secret
expedition and did not want anyone to know that they were
in the neighborhood." ^^

That night, says Townsley, they "drove down to the edge

* Congressman Brooks, of South Carolina, assaulted Senator Sumner in the
Senate on May 22, 1856, striking him on the head with a heavy cane.

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 155

of the timber between two deep ravines, and camped about
one mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing." ^^ And there,
Townsley asserts, John Brown told him for the first time
of his bloodthirsty intentions, and refused to let him go
when he, Townsley, asked to be allowed to take his team
and return home. All the next day, Saturday, the 24th, the
little company literally lay on their arms in their open-air
camp. For it was in the night that John Brown proposed to
strike his blow, in order, Salmon Brown declares, that they
might be sure to catch their quarry in their lairs. " Maybe,"
he adds, "Father took into consideration the terrifying ef-
fect of such a means." Certainly, the hour suited the deed.
The chase was trapped; save in one instance. Henry Sher-
man, whose absence in pursuit of wandering cattle saved
his life for another year, was one of three brothers, German
in origin, and therefore known in the community as Dutch
Bill, Dutch Henry and Dutch Pete. Border Ruffians by their
sympathies and their instincts, their character is painted
black enough by their Free Soil neighbors, who credited them
with no honest ways of life, generally thought of them as
ignorant and drunken, living at the crossing which bore the
name of Dutch Henry, and subsisting by making money out
of the emigrants or "lifting" a horse or a cow or two from the
caravans as they came by. For this well-known ford was the
point where the much-used road from Fort Scott to the Santa
Fe trail and the old California road, or road to Oregon, used
by emigrants going still further west, crossed the Pottawato-
mie. Weiner's store near-by also drew patronage from these
emigrant parties, and to it the Shermans and their pro-slavery
neighbors had carried their drunken threats of extermination
of the Abolitionists that had so stirred Weiner, Townsley
and Bondi. Indeed, the two diverse elements had even come
to blows, as Henry Thompson testifies. For several midwinter
months he had helped Weiner to keep his store. Returning
to it on Christmas Day, he found Weiner with an axe handle
beating "Dutch Bill" Sherman, who fled on the approach
of Thompson. "He attacked me in my own store," said
Weiner by way of explanation. =* "They were brutes and
bullies," declares one woman who resided at Osawatomie
at this time, in speaking of the murdered men, and this

156 JOHN BROWN

seems to sum up their character accurately, if the adjective
"ignorant" be added. 2'

The men of the Doyle family, father and two sons, were
low "poor whites" from Tennessee, who, while sympathizing
with the pro-slavery element, went to Kansas because, ac-
cording to Mrs. Doyle, they had found that slavery was
"ruinous to white labor." ^^ Mrs. Doyle herself was illiterate,
and it is altogether likely that the men were. The family
seems to have been very intimate with "Dutch Bill," who
was one of the oldest settlers in the region, and considerably
under his influence. Allen Wilkinson, on the other hand,
was a man of some education; he was a member of the pro-
slavery Legislature, and returned from its meetings at the
Shawnee Mission more than ever a pro-slavery man. George
W. Grant and his brother, Henry Grant, have testified that
Wilkinson was a dangerous man, whom everybody feared;
"the most evil looking man" they ever saw, "who fearfully
abused a nice wife, well liked by the neighbors." 2' Wilkin-
son, too, was free with his threats to the Free Soil settlers,
urging them to "clear out" and avoid trouble. All of them
were friendly with the Missourians who passed by, acting
as their guides and advisers. There is also no doubt that
when the Browns entered the camp of Buford's men as sur-
veyors, they found these obnoxious pro-slavery neighbors on-
good terms with the invaders.^"

Not unnaturally, a different character was assigned after
their murders to these men by the pro-slavery leaders. Thus,
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Republi-
can and leader of a pro-slavery company, testified that "they
had no fault as quiet citizens but being in favor of slavery.
That was the crime for which they forfeited their lives." "
The Rev. Martin White insisted to the pro-slavery Legisla-
ture that Wilkinson was a noble man, whose "greatest crime"
was that "he was a member of the first legislature in this
territory," which crime. White added, was the reason for
his death. 32 Congressman Oliver, the Democratic member
of the^ Howard Committee, was satisfied, after taking testi-
mony in the case of the murders, that Wilkinson was a quiet,
inoffensive man. "My husband was a quiet man, and was
not engaged in arresting or disturbing anybody. He took no

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 157

active part in the pro-slavery cause, so as to aggravate the
Abolitionists, but he was a pro-slavery man," was Mrs. Wil-
kinson's characterization of her husband.^' The Kansas
Weekly Herald of Leavenworth affirmed on June 7, 1856, that
Wilkinson was a member of the Legislature, and that the other
victims were "plain, honest, peaceable farming settlers."
But the weight of evidence is too strong on the other side to
make it possible to accept this characterization as correct.
Excepting perhaps Wilkinson, the others were of the rough,
brutal, disorderly element to be found in every frontier out-
post, whether it be mining camp or farmers' settlement.

During the morning of Saturday, the 24th, when John
Brown's party of avengers lay in the timber between two
deep ravines a mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing, Towns-
ley, so he asserts, did his best to dissuade the leader and his
sons from carrying out their plans, and to this end "talked
a good deal." But Brown insisted always that it had be-
come necessary "to strike terror into the hearts of the pro-
slavery people." Townsley even avers that the day's delay
was due to his protests and his refusal to guide the company
up to the forks of Mosquito Creek, some five or six miles
above, and point out where pro-slavery men resided, so that
Brown's men might sweep the creek of them as they came
down. This Salmon Brown declares to be nonsense, a plan
that "never was dreamed of." Moreover, Weiner, the store-
keeper, might well have been as efficient a guide as Townsley,
since he had been in Kansas longer and naturally had a
wider acquaintance. The delay, too, is not hard to explain.
The men must have been fairly exhausted when they en-
camped in the timber, since they had marched all the previous
night and, after working all the morning, had driven back
over rough roads between two o'clock and sundown. To
postpone the raid in order to obtain necessary sleep was most
natural. Then, since night-time was deemed necessary to
trap the prey sought, the day in camp was inevitable. But
on this fateful day the sun finally sank into the prairies, and
long before it disappeared, Townsley had resigned himself to
his situation sufficiently to decide that he would go along,
albeit unwillingly, as he declares.

As for the rest, aside from Weiner, whom Salmon Brown

158 JOHN BROWN

describes as a "big, savage, bloodthirsty Austrian" who
" could not be kept out of any accessible fight," ^* they needed
no persuasion. Whether it was the compelling personality of
their father, whose dominating manner and will-power later
led men willingly to their death under circumstances against
which their common sense revolted, or whether there was in
the sons a sufficient touch of an inherited mental disturb-
ance to make them less than rational in their reasoning, there
was no attempt at a filial revolt against a parental decision,
even when they went unwillingly. Two sons, at least, Freder-
ick and Oliver, kept their hands unstained, ^^ and probably
protested, only to submit and accompany their father and
imperious commander as witnesses of the horrors of that
night, sharing the guilt of all in the eyes of the law. The other
brothers, then unaccustomed to the sight of blood, who had
hitherto led the untroubled lives of plain American citizens,
were exalted or nerved now to deeds at which a trained pro-
fessional soldier might easily and creditably shrink. The
sword of Gideon was unsheathed. About the hour of ten
o'clock the party, armed with swords, revolvers and rifles,
proceeded in a northerly direction, " crossing Mosquito Creek
above the residence of the Doyles." Soon after crossing the
creek, some one of the party knocked at the door of a cabin.
There was no reply, but from within came the sound of a
gun rammed through the chinks of the cabin walls. It saved
the owner's life, for, relates Salmon Brown, "at that we all
scattered. We did not disturb that man. With some candle
wicking soaked in coal oil to light and throw inside, so that
we could see within while he could not see outside, we would
have managed it. But we had none. It was a method much
used later."

Thence it was but a short distance to the ill-fated Doyles'.
To add to the natural terrors of the night and of the dark
design, there came to meet them, at the very threshold of the
house, two dogs — "very savage bull dogs." One of these sen-
tinels Townsley claims to have helped despatch, for though,
according to his own story, an unwilling abettor under com-
pulsion, he carried one of the deadly Bierce swords and was
thus an armed prisoner. It was about eleven o'clock, Mrs.
Doyle testified, that her family heard a knock. ^^

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 159

"My husband got up and went to the door. Those outside in-
quired for Mr. Wilkson [Wilkinson] and where he lived. My hus-
band told them that he would tell them. Mr. Doyle, my husband,
opened the door, and several came into the house, and said that they
were from the army. My husband was a pro-slavery man. They
told my husband that he and the boys must surrender, they were
their prisoners. These men were armed with pistols and large knives.
They first took my husband out of the house, then they took two
of my sons — the two oldest ones, William and Drury — out, and
then took my husband and these two boys, William and Drury,
away. My son John was spared, because I asked them in tears to
spare him. In a short time afterward I heard the report of pistols."

Thus, without warning or notice, her husband and two sons
were torn from her and despatched. "When we entered the
Doyle cabin," says Salmon Brown, "Mrs. Doyle stormed,
raved at her men, after we had taken them prisoners. 'Haven't
I told you what you were going to get for the course you have
been taking?' she scresuned. 'Hush, mother, hush,' replied
her husband." Her two boys, twenty-two and twenty years
of age, were granted, like her husband, no time to make their
peace, no time to ask forgiveness of their sins. Townsley af-
firms that he, Frederick Brown and Weiner were at some dis-
tance from the house, but near enough to cry out in protest
if he had wished to, and near enough to see that John Brown
"drew his revolver and shot old man Doyle in the forehead,
and Brown's two younger sons immediately fell upon the
younger Doyles with their short two-edged swords." But in
this, according to Salmon Brown, Townsley was mistaken,
just as he erred in insisting that Watson Brown, then at
North Elba, was present and playing the part of executioner.
"Not one of the Doyles ran a single step," is Salmon's posi-
tive statement. "They fell where they stood. I think that
the father Doyle was not the first of the three to be killed."

As for John Brown's own part, he killed none of them with
his own hand; to this both Henry Thompson and Salmon
Brown bear positive witness, as did John Brown himself.
But Mrs. Doyle did hear one shot at least. Salmon Brown
will not positively state that his father fired it, but admits
that no one else in the party pulled a trigger. He is at a loss
to explain why the shot was fired. "It did no possible good,
as a bullet, for Doyle had long been stone dead." And his

i6o JOHN BROWN

father could therefore truthfully say that he had raised his
hand against no living man. "I was three hundred yards
away when the shot was fired," is Henry Thompson's state-
ment. "Those who were on the spot told me that it was done
after Doyle was dead." Even with Oliver and Frederick, a
younger and older son, taking no part, the killings lasted but
a moment. Doyle and his two sons in an instant lay lifeless,
— a Free State warning to the pro-slavery forces that it was
to be a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, henceforth, so far
as one wing of the Free State party was concerned. If pro-
slavery men had not been made to die when Lawrence fell,
here were three to even up the score. " My husband, and two
boys, my sons," testified the simple, untutored, pitiful Ma-
hala Doyle, "did not come back any more. I went out next
morning in search of them, and found my husband and Wil-
liam, my son, lying dead in the road near together, about
two hundred yards from the house. My other son I did not
see any more until the day he was buried. I was so much
overcome that I went into the house. They were buried the
next day. On the day of the burying I saw the dead body of
Drury. Fear of myself and the remaining children induced
me to leave the home where we had been living. We had
improved our claim a little. I left all and went to the State
of Missouri."

"I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead
in the road, about two hundred yards from the house," tes-
tified John Doyle." "I saw my other brother lying dead on
the ground, about one hundred and fifty yards from the
house, in the grass, near a ravine; his fingers were cut off,
and his arms were cut off; his head was cut open ; there was a
hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole
was in his jaw, as though it was made by a knife, and a hole
was also in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and
stabbed in the breast." "Owen and another killed the Doyles,"
says Salmon Brown, and by a process of elimination it is
apparent that the other could only have been himself. " It is
not true," Townsley testifies, "that there was any intentional
mutilation of the bodies after they were killed. They were
slain as quickly as possible and left, and whatever gashes
they received were inflicted in the process of cutting them

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE i6i

down with swords. I understand that the killing was done
with these swords so as to avoid alarming the neighborhood
by the discharge of firearms."

The next man to meet his fate at the hands of John Brown's
merciless party was Wilkinson. The same procedure was
adopted. Somewhere between the hours of midnight and day-
break, "we were disturbed by the barking of the dog," Mrs.
Wilkinson informed Congressman Oliver, under oath.^' She
continued :

"I was sick with the measles, and woke up Mr. Wilkinson, and
asked if he heard the noise and what it meant? He said it was only
someone passing about, and soon after was again asleep. It was not
long before the dog raged and barked furiously, awakening me once
more; pretty soon I heard footsteps as of men approaching; saw
one pass by the window, and some one knocked at the door. I asked,
who is that? No one answered. I awoke my husband, who asked,
who is that? Someone replied, 'I want you to tell me the way to
Dutch Henry's.' He commenced to tell them, and they said to him,
' Come out and show us.' He wanted to go, but I would not let him ;
he then told them it was difficult to find his clothes, and could tell
them as well without going out of doors. The men out of doors,
after that, stepped back, and I thought I could hear them whisper-
ing; but they immediately returned, and, as they approached, one
of them asked of my husband, 'Are you a northern armist?' He
said, 'I am!' I understood the, answer to mean that my husband
was opposed to the northern or freesoil party. I cannot say that I
understood the question. My husband was a pro-slavery man, and
was a member of the territorial legislature held at Shawnee Mission.
When my husband said ' I am,' one of them said, 'You are our pris-
oner. Do you surrender?' He said, 'Gentlemen, I do.' They said,
'open the door.' Mr. Wilkinson told them to wait till he made a
light; and they replied, 'if you don't open it, we will open it for you.'
He opened the door against my wishes, and four men came in, and
my husband was told to put on his clothes, and they asked him if
there were not more men about; they searched for arms, and took a
gun and powder flask, all the weapon that was about the house. I
begged them to let Mr. Wilkinson stay with me, saying that I was
sick and helpless, and could not stay by myself. My husband also
asked them to let him stay with me until he could get someone to
wait on me; told them that he would not run off, but would be there
the next day, or whenever called for. The old man, who seemed to
be in command, looked at me and then around at the children, and
replied, 'You have neighbors.' I said, 'So I have, but they are not
here, and I cannot go for them.' The old man replied, 'it matters
not.' I [he?] told him to get ready. My husband wanted to put on

l62 JOHN BROWN

his boots and get ready, so as to be protected from the damp and
night air, but they would n't let him. They then took my husband
away. One of them came back and took two saddles ; I asked him
what they were going to do with him, and he said, ' take him a pris-
oner to the camp.' I wanted one of them to stay with me. He said
he would, but 'they would not let him.' After they were gone, I
thought I heard my husband's voice, in complaint, but do not know;
went to the door, and all was still. Next morning Mr. Wilkinson
was found about one hundred and fifty yards from the house in some
dead brush. A lady who saw my husband's body, said that there
was a gash in his head and in his side; others said that he was cut
in the throat twice."

"We divided our forces at Wilkinson's, I think, into two
parties to go on separate errands," is Salmon Brown's testi-
mony. "Henry Thompson and Weiner killed Wilkinson and
Sherman. My party was not present when Wilkinson and
Sherman were killed. Townsley could not have been present
at each crisis, as he implies. No one else was." Yet Townsley
attributes Wilkinson's murder to "one of the younger Browns"
and adds: "After he was killed his body was dragged to one
side and left." Henry Thompson states that he was not pre-
sent when the Doyles were killed, but is silent as to the fate
of Wilkinson and Sherman.

The "old man" to whom Mrs. Wilkinson's pleading for
her husband's life had "mattered not" was still unplacated
when Wilkinson's dead body lay in the brush. The next and
last man to die was William Sherman. "We then crossed the
Pottawatomie and came to the house of Henry Sherman,"
is Townsley 's tale. "Here John Brown and the party, except-
ing Frederick Brown, Weiner and myself, who were left out-
side a short distance from the door, went into the house and
brought out one or two persons, talked with them some, and
then took them in again. They afterward brought out William
Sherman, Dutch Henry's brother, marched him down into
the Pottawatomie Creek, where he was slain with swords
by Brown's two youngest sons and left lying in the creek."
But Townsley was again wrong as to his details, for the house
was not Sherman's, but that of James Harris, who promptly
made afifidavit thereto and thus related what befell : ^^

"On last Sunday morning, about two o'clock, (the 25th of May
last,) whilst my wife and child and myself were in bed in the house

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 163

where we lived, we were aroused by a company of men who said
they belonged to the northern army, and who were each armed
with a sabre and two revolvers, two of whom I recognized, namely, a
Mr.'Brown, whose given name I do not remember, commonly known
by the appellation of 'old man Brown,' and his son, Owen Brown.
They came in the house and approached the bedside where we were
lying, and ordered us, together with three other men who were in
the same house with me, to surrender; that the northern army was
upon us, and it would be no use for us to resist. The names of these
other three men who were then in my house with me are, William
Sherman, John S. Whiteman, the other man I did not know. They
were stopping with me that night. They had bought a cow from
Henry Sherman, and intended to go home the next morning. When
they [the Browns] came up to the bed, some had drawn sabres in
their hands, and some revolvers. They then took into their pos-
session two rifles and a Bowie knife, which I had there in the room
— there was but one room in my house — and afterward ransacked
the whole establishment in search of ammunition. They then took
one of these three men, who were staying in my house, out. (This
was the man whose name I did not know.) He came back. They
then took me out, and asked me if there were any more men about
the place. I told them there were not. They searched the place,
but found none others but we four. They asked me where Henry
Sherman was. Henry Sherman was a brother to William Sherman.
I told theiri that he was out on the plains in search of some cattle
which he had lost. They asked if I had ever taken any hand in aid-
ing pro-slavery men in coming to the Territory of Kansas, or had
ever taken any hand in the last troubles at Lawrence, and asked
me whether I had ever done the free State party any harm or ever
intended to do that party any harm ; they asked me what made me
live at such a place. I then answered that I could get higher wages
there than anywhere else. They asked me if there were any bridles
or saddles about the premises. I told them there was one saddle,
which they took, and they also took possession of Henry Sherman's
horse, which I had at my place, and made me saddle him. They
then said if I would answer no to all questions which they had asked
me, they would let [me?] loose. Old Mr. Brown and his son then
went into the house with me. The other three men, Mr. William
Sherman, Mr. Whiteman, and th« stranger were in the house all
this time. After old man Brown and his son went into the house with
me, old man Brown asked Mr. Sherman "to go out with him, and
Mr. Sherman then went out with old Mr. Brown, and another man
came into the house in Brown's place. I heard nothing more for
about fifteen minutes. Two of the northern army, as they styled
themselves, stayed on with us until we heard a cap burst, and then
these two men left. That morning about ten o'clock I found Wil-
liam Sherman dead in the creek near my house. I was looking for
Mr. Sherman, as he had not come back, I thought he had been mur-

164 JOHN BROWN

dered. I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined
him. Mr. Whiteman was with me. Sherman's skull was split open
in two places and some of his brains was washed out by the water.
A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off ex-
cept a little piece of skin on one side. We buried him."

Here Thompson and Weiner were again the executioners,
according to Salmon Brown. "Neither of the younger sons,
nor Owen, was present when William Sherman was killed."
Then, at last, John Brown was satisfied. He had told Towns-
ley that he must take matters into his own hands "for the
protection of the Free State settlers; that it was better that
a score of bad men should die than that one man who came
here to make Kansas a Free State should be driven out."
The rising Sabbath sun shone on five mutilated bodies, their
very starkness, in their executioner's eyes, a protection to the
Free State settlers for many miles around. The bloody night's
work was over. Confusion now had made his masterpiece.

Three and one half years later, when in jail and under
sentence of death, John Brown received the following letter
purporting to come from Mahala Doyle. Mrs. Doyle could
not write, and the letter is obviously, in its style, beyond her
homely powers of expression, though she may have signed it,
and there is nothing in it she might not have said in her own
way:

Chattanooga, Tennessee Nov. 20th, 1859."

John Brown: — Sir, — Altho' vengence is not mine I confess
that I do feel gratified, to hear that you were stopped in your fiend-
ish career at Harper's Ferry, with the loss of your two sons, you
can now appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then & there
entered my house at midnight and arrested my Husband and two
boys, and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them
dead in my hearing, you cant say you done it to free slaves, we had
none and never expected to own one, but has only made me a poor
disconsolate widow with helpless children, while I feel for your
folly I do hope & trust that you will meet your just reward. 0 how
it pairied my heart to hear the dying groans of my Husband & chil-
dren, if this scrawl gives you any consolation you are welcome to it

Mahala Doyle.

N. B. My son John Doyle whose life I beged of you is now grown
up and is very desirous to be at Charlestown on the day of your
execution, would certainly be there if his means would permit it
that he might adjust the rope around your neck if Gov. Wise would
permit it. M. Doyle.

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 165

Townsley asserts that Brown was intent upon killing
George Wilson, Probate Judge of Anderson County, whom he
hoped to find at Sherman's, for the reason that he had been
warning Free State men to leave the Territory. Townsley
claimed to have received such a notice himself. But Salmon
Brown and Henry Thompson deny positively that Wilson
was on the proscribed list. Be this as it may, there was no
further search for any one, and the blood-stained party went
back to the camping-place in the timber between the two deep
ravines, their swords, "unmannerly breached with gore,"
being first washed in Pottawatomie Creek. Just before day-
light, Townsley avers, Owen Brown came to him and said,
"There shall be no more such work as that." In the after-
noon the eight men started back to rejoin the Pottawatomie
company under John Brown, Jr. They found it about mid-
night, encamped near Ottawa Jones's farm, where, as we have
seen, the news of their awful deed had already preceded
them, and where John Brown, Jr., had resigned the cap-
taincy of the company. As soon as Jason Brown, whose
hatred of blood-letting had deprived him of his father's con-
fidence when violent deeds were under way, met his father
face to face, he encountered him tremblingly, — for this was
the "worst shock" that ever came to him in his life.^' "Did
you, " he demanded of his father, "have anything to do with
the killing of those men on the Pottawatomie?" "I did not
do it," the father replied, "but I approved of it." "I spoke
to him as I then felt about it," continues Jason; "I did not
fully understand the cause of it then, and told him I was very
sorry the act had been done. I said to him : ' I think it was an
uncalled for, wicked act.' He said: 'God is my judge. It was
absolutely necessary as a measure of self-defence, and for
the defence of others.' I cannot give his exact language, but
this was the purport of it. It seemed to hurt his feelings that
I felt so about it. He soon after left us, and John and I re-
turned to Osawatomie." Not, however, until he had sought
additional information. He inquired of his brother Frederick
if he knew who the murderers were. "Yes I do, but I can't
tell you." " Did you kill any of them with your own hands? "
"No; when I came to see what manner of work it was, I
could not do it." The tears rolled down Frederick's face as he

i66 JOHN BROWN

spoke, Jason reports; and this eye-witness of the tragedy seems
never to have learned to approve of it. In this he was in marked
contrast to Townsley, for, unwilling participant as he was, he
stated that after the event he became convinced that it resulted
in good to the Free State settlers on Pottawatomie Creek.

Jason and John Brown, Jr., felt too badly to join forces
with their father. The Pottawatomie Company started for
home under H. H. Williams in a very different frame of mind
toward the men they had so gayly cheered out of camp but
three days before, either because of a sudden repentance, or
of their having expected a stand-up fight instead of a slaugh-
ter, or because the deed in its reality seemed so much worse
than in anticipation that those in the secret joined the others
in their detestation of it. John Brown and his fellow execu-
tioners fell behind the company, after crossing Middle Creek,
and struck off by themselves in the direction of Jason's and
the younger John's homes. Jason and John headed not for
their cabins but for Osawatomie. Already the roads were
lined with men, so Jason narrates,*^ from Palmyra to Osa-
watomie, looking for the Browns. The brothers got to the
Adair cabin, where both their wives had taken refuge during
their absence, at about 9 p. m. Adair came to the door with
his gun. "Who's there?" said he. "John and I." "Can't
keep you here. Our lives are threatened. Every moment we
expect to have our house burned over our heads." To their
entreaties, he only repeated: "I cannot keep you." "Here
are we two alone," pleaded Jason. "We have eaten nothing
all day. Let us lie on your floor until morning — in your
out-house — anywhere." Then Mrs. Adair came and asked,
"Did you have anything to do with the murders on the
Pottawatomie?" "I did not," said Jason. "And John had
no action in it." "Then," said Mrs. Adair, "you may stay.
But we risk our lives in keeping you." They gave the two
a mattress on the floor beside the Adairs' bed, and the four
talked till midnight, Jason telling all he knew of the affair.
John lay groaning. In the middle of the night John spoke to
his Aunt Florilla. " I feel that I am going insane," said he, and
in the morning he was insane. Jason had slept after a while,
but John could not. His mind was gone, yet not so far gone
but that he was able to understand and to acquiesce when

SALMON BROWN

JOHN BROWN, jiL.

JASON BROWN

OWEN BROWN

FOUR OF JOHN BROWN'S SONS
In later years

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 167

Jason advised him to hide, and to act upon it. About two or
three o'clock that same night, a knock had been heard at the
door. "Who's there?" called out Adair. "Owen." "Getaway,
get away as quick as you can ! You endanger our lives." Adair
would not parley or let him in. "You are a vile murderer,
a marked man!" said he.^' "I intend to be a marked man!"
shouted Owen, and rode away — on one of the murdered
men's horses.

The Rev. Mr. Adair was not the only one to feel outraged
at first by the murders committed by his relatives. John
T. Grant and Judge Hanway, two of the best Free State set-
tlers in that region, talked the matter over, so J. G. Grant, a
son of the former, recollects," and agreed that John Brown's
action was inexcusable. He had taken, they said, the mo-
ment when the families of all the men who had gone to the
rescue of Lawrence were helpless, to commit a crime which
invited and provoked a vengeful attack upon the settlement.
Was that sane or decent, they asked? And was it excusable
for ihim, after the murder, to march away from the seat
of danger and rejoin the company at Ottawa Jones's, thus
leaving the women and children more than ever helpless?
Not until some time afterwards did Adair and Hanway, like
Townsley, come around to an approval of the deed as they
saw it in retrospect. "Last Sunday or Monday," wrote on
May 31, 1856, James H. Carruth, another Osawatomie Free
State settler of character, to the Watertown, New York, Re-
former, ^ ^ " five pro-slavery men were killed seven or eight miles
from here. It is said that they had threatened to hang another
pro-slavery man who had sold provisions to the free state
men unless he left the territory in a few hours, and that one
of them had been around the neighborhood brandishing his
bowie-knife and threatening to kill people. It was murder,
nevertheless, and the free-state men here cooperate with the
pro-slavery men in endeavoring to arrest the murderers."
"Threatened and ordered to leave in given time under pen-
alty of death, some few persons committed the horrid murders
at Pottawatomie 10 miles above," was the way O. C. Brown
described the crime on June 24, 1856, in a letter to a friend. "«
The writer was no relative of the murderers, but a staunch
Free State man and a leader at Osawatomie. H. L. Jones,

i68 JOHN BROWN

another settler, declares that the act was generally believed
by Free State men to be warranted at the time, but that
"policy dictated that the deed should be disavowed as having
general disapproval." *'' George Thompson, a settler who lived
four miles northeast of the Brown claims, testified, in 1894,
that "at the time of the executions of the Doyles, Wilkinson
and Sherman, with many of my neighbors I did not approve
the act, but since, on more fully understanding the circum-
stances, I believe the act to have been wise and justifiable." "
Three days after the murders, a public meeting was held
in Osawatomie, of which C. H. Price was chairman and H. H.
Williams secretary. It adopted unanimously the following
emphatic resolutions:

"Whereas, An outrage of the darkest and foulest nature has been
committed in our midst by some midnight assassins unknown, who
have taken five of our citizens at the hour of midnight from their
homes and families, and murdered and mangled them in the most
awful manner; to prevent a repetition of these deeds, we deem it
necessary to adopt some measures for our mutual protection and to
aid and assist in bringing these desperadoes to justice. Under these
circumstances we propose to act up to the following resolutions:

" Resolved, That we will from this time lay aside all sectional
and political feelings and act together as men of reason and common
sense, determined to oppose all men who are so ultra in their views
as to denounce men of opposite opinion.

" Resolved, That we will repudiate and discountenance all organ-
ized bands of men who leave their homes for the avowed purpose of
exciting others to acts of violence, believing it to be the duty of all
good disposed citizens to stay at home during these exciting times
and protect and if possible restore the peace and harmony of the
neighborhood ; furthermore we will discountenance all armed bodies
of men who may come amongst us from any other part of the Ter-
ritory or from the States unless said parties shall come under the
authority of the United States.

" Resolved, That we pledge ourselves, individually and collectively,
to prevent a recurrence of a similar tragedy and to ferret out and
hand over to the criminal authorities the perpetrators for punishment.

C. H. Price, President

R. Golding, Chairman

R. Gilpatrick
"H. H. Williams* W. C. McDow \ Committee"

Secretary S. V. Vandaman

A. Castele

John Blunt
, * If Salmon Brown's memory of H. H. Williams's instigation of the murders

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 169

The Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, on June 14, in
printing these resolutions, ^^ says: "The outlaws that are now
prowling about over the country and murdering harmless and
innocent men, it will be seen, have been denounced publicly by
persons of their own political opinions. The President of the
meeting is a Pro-slavery man, and the Secretary, Free State."
" The respectability of the parties and the cruelties attending
these murders have produced an extraordinary state of excite-
ment in that portion of the territory, which has, heretofore,
remained comparatively quiet," Governor Shannon reported
on May 31, 1856, to President Pierce.^" "The effect of this
massacre on the inhabitants of the creeks was greatly to alarm
both parties. The pro-slavery settlers almost entirely left at
once and the Free State people were constantly fearful," was
the statement of George W. and H. C. Grant, also sons of J. T.
Grant. ^1 "No one can defend the action of the marshal's posse
at Lawrence, in burning the hotel, destroying the printing-
press and other outrages," wrote Major John Sedgwick, First
Cavalry, from Fort Leavenworth, on June 11, 1856, seven-
teen days after the Pottawatomie massacre, and just eight
years before he gave his life for the Union as a distinguished
major-general of volunteers in the battle of Spottsylvania,
"but no life was lost, no one was threatened or felt himself
in danger. In retaliation for this act, inoffensive citizens have
been plundered, their houses robbed and burned, and five
men were taken out of their beds, their throats cut, their ears
cut off, their persons gashed more horribly than our savages
have ever done. I sincerely think that most of the atrocities
have been committed by the free-soil party, but I cannot think
that they countenance such acts — that is, the respectable
class." 52

If Major Sedgwick was correct in his estimate of the atti-
tude of the Free State men toward midnight assassination,
at the hour he wrote, it is undeniable that as time passed,
opinions about Brown's actions began to change. "I never
had much doubt that Capt. Brown was the author of the blow
at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he was the only man
who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute neces-

is correct, his serving at this settler's meeting convicts Williams of almost incred-
ible hypocrisy and cowardice.

170 JOHN BROWN

sity of some such blow and had the nerve to strike it," wrote
Governor Charles Robinson , February 5,1878, nearly two years
before Townsley's confession was published." Judge Han-
way, as we have already seen, altered his position radically,
and in the following statement of February I, 1878, accurately
summarizes the progress of public opinion in the neighborhood
of the crime:

". . . So far as public opinion in the neighborhood, where the
affair took place, is concerned, I believe I may state that the first
news of the event produced such a shock that public opinion was
considerably divided; but after the whole circumstances became
known, there was a reaction in public opinion and the Free State
settlers who had claims on the creek considered that Capt. Brown
and his party of eight had performed a justifiable act, which saved
their homes and dwellings from threatened raids of the proslavery
party.""

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in his 'Cheerful Yester-
days,' states:

"In regard to the most extreme act of John Brown's Kansas
career, the so-called 'Pottawatomie massacre' of May 24, 1856, 1
can testify that in September of that year, there appeared to be but
one way of thinking among the Kansas Free State men. ... I
heard of no one who did not approve of the act, and its beneficial
effects were universally asserted — Governor Robinson himself fully
endorsing it to me. . . ." °^

How may the killings on the Pottawatomie, this terrible
violation of the statute and the moral laws, be justified? This
is the question which has confronted every student of John
Brown's life since it was definitely established that Brown
was, if not actually a principal in the crime, an accessory and
an instigator. There have been advanced many excuses for
the killings, and a number of them deserve careful scrutiny.
That there may be times in a newly settled country when it
becomes necessary for the conservative elements to take the
law into their own hands, in the absence of proper judicial
machinery, lest the community fall into a state of utter law-
lessness and anarchy, has been admitted ever since lynch
law brought order out of chaos in San Francisco in 1849. But
it has similarly been recognized that even this wild justice,
when set afoot, must follow a certain procedure ; that commit-

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 171

tees of safety or vigilance should be formed and a kind of
drum-head trial be instituted for the purpose of giving the
accused men some opportunity to be heard in their own de-
fence. History shows, moreover, that lynch law should only
be proclaimed and obeyed for the briefest of periods, lest the
second state be worse than the first; and that, even when in-
stituted, public proceedings on the part of the self-appointed
regulators are essential, both in order to make the punish-
ments as deterrent as possible, and to persuade the commu-
nity that it is justice, however rude, that is being dispensed.
In Kansas in 1856 the situation was different from that of
California in 1849-50, in that most of the existing lawless-
ness had its origin largely in the national politics of the day.
That there were the same rude and dangerous characters to be
found on every frontier is proved by the recital of the crimes
committed in Kansas prior to the Pottawatomie murders. In
the case of Kansas, the high character of part of the emigra-
tion was offset by the lawless character of the Border Ruffians.
Slavery itself tended to that overbearing lawlessness which
is inevitable wherever the fate of a dark-colored people is
placed unreservedly in the hands of whites. It was the spirit
of intolerance and lawlessness bred by slavery which dictated
the destruction of Lawrence and made the abuse of the ballot-
boxes seem proper and justifiable. But, granting that there
was friction full of grave possibilities between a handful of the
pro-slavery settlers on the Pottawatomie and their Free Soil
neighbors, it is by no means clear either that the conditions
prior to the killings were so grave as to demand the establish-
ment of martial law, or that they called for the installation
of vigilance committees to inflict extreme penalties upon
the desperadoes. Not a single person had been killed in the
region around Osawatomie, either by the lawless characters
or by armed representatives of the pro-slavery cause. The
instances of brutality or murder narrated in the preceding
chapters all took place miles to the north, in the vicinity
of Lawrence or Leavenworth. Beyond doubt the publica-
tion of these atrocities inflamed not only the Browns, but
kindled the anger and curdled the blood of every Free Soil
settler who read of them. Yet the companies that set forth
from Osawatomie to Lawrence deemed it quite safe to leave

172 JOHN BROWN

the settlements to themselves, despite the character of the
Shermans and the Doyles and certain occurrences that might
well have given ground for uneasiness.

What those occurrences were becomes of great importance,
because many loose statements about them have been brought
forward from time to time as affording ample justification
for the Pottawatomie blood-letting. The most careful search
for and weighing of many testimonies, contemporary and
reminiscent, establishes in the neighborhood of Osawatomie
only five definite pro-slavery offences, after hearsay recollec-
tions and wholly unsubstantiated stories are eliminated. It
seems to be established beyond doubt that Poindexter Manes,
a Free Soil settler, was knocked down and beaten for having
a New York Tribune in his pocket. ^^ Less well substantiated
is the case of one Baker, a Vermonter, living on the Pottawato-
mie, who was taken from his cabin and strung up to a tree,
but who was cut down in time to save his life. There is no
record of his assailants, nor can the time be accurately fixed
beyond that it was in the month of April." To the Doyles
and Shermans is attributed the frightening of a woman named
Holmes, who was nearing confinement, by the brandishing
of a knife and the demand that she reveal the whereabouts
of the men of her family. It is variously stated that she died
and that she "came near dying," in consequence.^* Along the
same line and more important is the statement that "Dutch
Bill," in the absence of the men on their trip to Lawrence,
entered the cabin of John T. Grant and attempted an assault
upon the person of Mary Grant, his daughter. This story is
the basis for the allegation that a messenger reached John
Brown in the first night's camp, near Prairie City, and re-
ported the attack upon Mary Grant, and that the persons of
the women of his own family had been threatened. Fortu-
nately, Mary Grant, as well as Mrs. John Brown, Jr., is still
alive.* The latter states positively that the women of the
settlement were never harmed.** In this she is emphatically
borne out by a contemporary declaration of Jason Brown in
a letter to North Elba on June 28, 1856, a month after the
killings: " No women have been injured yet; so far as I know.
Some of the five pro-slavery men who were killed had threat-
* Since the above was written, Mary Grant Brown has died.

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 173

ened the lives of Free State men near them; and also to cut
the throat of a young woman, a neighbor."'" As Jason
Brown's wife was with him in Kansas, it is only natural to
suppose that if her safety and that of his sister-in-law had
been in danger, he would have reported it. Salmon Brown
affirms that : ' ' The statement that women were in any way
molested is entirely without foundation." Mary Grant, the
young woman neighbor, whose throat was threatened at the
time, a remarkably pretty and attractive young woman, who
had never feared to go freely to Wilkinson's post-office and
to meet there the Doyles and Shermans, told recently this
story of her experience with "Dutch Bill," which experience
is the sole basis for the fabrication that John Brown was
recalled because Free State women were in danger: "

" Dutch Bill arrived at our house, one day, horribly drunk, with
a whiskey bottle with a corncob stopper, and an immense butcher
knife in his belt. Mr. Grant, my father, was sick in bed, but when
they told him that Bill Sherman was coming, in that state, he said:
' Put my shot gun beside the bed.' There was also a neighbor pre-
sent, who was armed. 'Old woman,' said Bill Sherman to my mo-
ther, ' you and I are pretty good friends, but damn your daughter.
I '11 drink her heart's blood.' Yet my little brother Charley, a mere
boy of twelve or fourteen, succeeded in cajoling him away without
violence."

This story, says Mary Grant (Mrs. Mary E. Brown, of San
Jose, California), Frederick Brown asked her for again and
again, before the men marched to Lawrence. It is thus clear
that the episode was in itself precisely what might happen
in any isolated settlement which contained a drunken, worth-
less settler, and that it was known to at least one Brown long
before the sudden start for Lawrence. Jason Brown relates
it in his letter in its proper proportions. Mrs. B. F. Jackson,
a resident of Osawatomie at the time, also testifies '^ that
she never heard of any of the women of Osawatomie or
Pottawatomie being troubled ; yet news of attacks on them,
had such occurred, must have travelled faster and made a
more lasting impression upon the women of the frontier than
anything else. In this connection it is interesting to note
that although Gihon makes wholesale charges of rape against
the Border Ruffians,*' Mrs. Charles Robinson, than whom the

174 JOHN BROWN

Ruffians have never had a severer critic, states that she knows
of only a single case of criminal assault upon women during
Kansas's troubled times. This case she records in her book
as having occurred in August, 1856, or months after the Potta-
watomie massacre."'^ Similar favorable testimony is given by
many other women, who were early settlers, when asked this
specific question. In all the mass of material accumulated by
the Kansas Historical Society, there is not a proved instance
of Border Ruffian misconduct of this kind, unless we except
that cited by Mrs. Robinson and the case of two sisters who
lived five miles northwest of Lawrence, which is reported
in the Tribune of June 9, 1856, on the not always reliable
authority of James Redpath. What fronti^ settlement in a
time of great excitement and unrest can show a better record?
It must be noted, too, that whereas elsewhere there might
have been a natural desire to suppress such facts, there were
plenty of correspondents besides Redpath eager for such ter-
rible happenings with which to blacken the case against the
Border Ruffians and stir more Northerners to coming to the
rescue of Free Kansas.

A fifth Missouri outrage is directly brought home by the
Grant family to Wilkinson, the Shermans and Doyles. This
was the case of an old man named Morse, from Michigan,
who had sold lead for bullets to the Browns. As George Grant
narrates the story,

"The next morning, after the company had started to go to
Lawrence, a number of these proslavery men, Wilkinson, Doyle,
his two sons, and William Sherman, known as ' Dutch Bill ' — took
a rope and were going to hang him [Morse] for selling the lead to
the Free State men. They frightened the old man terribly; and
finally told him he must leave the country before eleven o'clock,
or they would hang him. They then left and went to the Shermans
and went to drinking. About eleven o'clock a portion of them, half
drunk, went back to Mr. Morse's and were going to kill him with
an axe. His little boys — one was only nine years old — set up a
violent crying, and begged for their father's life. They finally gave
him until sundown to leave. He left everything and came at once
to our house. He was nearly frightened to death. He came to our
house carrying a blanket and leading his little boy by the hand.
When night came he was so afraid that he would not stay in the
house, but went out doors and slept on the prairie in the grass.
For a few days he lay about in the brush, most of the time getting

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 175

his meals at our house. He was then taken violently ill and died
in a very short time. Dr. Gilpatrick attended him during his brief
illness, and said that his death was directly caused by the fright
and excitement of that terrible day when he was driven from his

It will be noticed that the threats to Morse were made the
day after the company had gone, or on Friday. It is per-
fectly plain, therefore, that no news of this could have reached
John Brown in camp near Prairie City before two o'clock of
the same day, when he started back in Townsley's wagon,
bent on the killings. Furthermore, there was no communica-
tion between his party, as it lay in the timber between the
ravines on the day of the killing, and the settlements. What-
ever else may have actuated John Brown, it was not the at-
tack upon the old man, Morse, of which he knew nothing, not
even if a messenger bearing stories of threatened outrage on
the Pottawatomie reached Brown on that one morning in
camp when the cutlasses were being ground.

This question of the alleged messenger bringing fiews of the
threats against the Free Soil settlers is one that has deeply
agitated the apologists for and critics of John Brown. The
identity of this Mercury has never been established. He is
variously thought to have been "Bondi or some one sent
by him" — according to George Grant; or Weiner, accord-
ing to O. C. Brown and John Hutchings. Townsley and Judge
Hanway were sure that George Grant himself was the mes-
senger, but as George Grant denies this and points out that
he marched out with the Pottawatomie Rifles, this guess
must be eliminated. H. H. Williams, on January 20, 1883,
wrote to R. J. Hinton that he was the messenger. Unfortu-
nately for this theory, his own contemporary letter to the
Tribune, written within two months of the killings, proves
that he went up toward Lawrence not as a messenger but as
first lieutenant of the Pottawatomie Rifles, for he relates
various incidents of the night march. Among others who af-
firm that there was a messenger are John Brown, Jr., August
Bondi, J. F. Legate, Samuel Anderson, Mary Grant, J. G.
Grant and C. S. Adair; but none of them has a clue to his iden-
tity. Salmon Brown, on the other hand, is positive that there
was no messenger. So is Colonel James Blood. If there was

176 JOHN BROWN

a messenger who reached camp on Friday morning, he could
only have had later news by two or three hours than the
men of the Pottawatomie Rifles themselves brought, for they
marched from the cross-roads near Osawatomie at six p. m.,
and were not much over six hours in camp the next day be-
fore John Brown left on his way back. If the company had
received tidings revealing grave danger to their women and
children at home, it is incredible that they would not have
returned at once with John Brown, to protect their families.
Instead, they were content to remain idly in camp for two
days. If Colonel Blood's narrative of meeting Townsley's
wagon-load is true, it is again astonishing that John Brown
never inquired of him what had happened during their twenty-
four hours' absence. Had they done so. Blood could have
told Brown that when he himself rode through the Pottawa-
tomie settlement that afternoon, he found the place perfectly
quiet, the only excitement relating to Lawrence; that a few
men were in the fields and the women and children were about
the cabins. ^^ But the height of absurdity is the supposition
that eight able-bodied men, heavily armed, would spend all
of one night and the whole of the next day, Saturday, in the
timber between two ravines near Pottawatomie Creek with-
out stirring to inquire how the Brown kinsmen and kins-
women, the Adairs, the Days, Mrs. John Brown, Jr., and
Mrs. Jason Brown, were faring during the twenty-four hours
between the return and the murders, if these relatives were
known to be in danger. If the killings were due to any sudden
alarm that the creek was to be cleared of all Free State set-
tlers, then the eight men were craven, indeed, to spend this
day without scouting the neighborhood. This supposition is
incredible in view of John Brown's known bravery. His
men hid because they did not wish their connection with the
murders known, and after the crime they returned stealthily
to Ottawa Jones's without having troubled any one with a
question as to the fate of the unguarded women and children
of their comrades of the Pottawatomie Rifles.

The truth must be that John Brown decided on the mur-
ders because of some general reason or previous conviction
that it was necessary to remove the victims, and not because
of any sudden news. As to the messenger, there was none;

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 177

the reports of threats to Free State settlers made by the Sher-
mans and Doyles, which were undoubtedly talked of in the
camp and hastened John Brown's action, were brought in
not by any one man or any two men, but by Bondi, Weiner,
Townsley and others of the Rifles. H. H. Williams, in his
contemporary letter, records that he rode ten miles up and
down the creek to call his company together, and that thirty-
four men had come from various distances by six p. M. to
the rendezvous. As they marched that night, they doubtless
exchanged news and gossip ; the story about " Dutch Bill " and
Mary Grant may have been magnified in the telling and re-
telling and reached many ears for the first time as the little
column stumbled forward over the dark roads, while the excite-
ment of the hour probably led some of the men to think that
"Dutch Bill's" drunken threat had just been uttered.

To find the reason and the excuse for the cold-blooded
murder of the Doyles, Sherman and Wilkinson, we must,
therefore, look elsewhere. The Grants" and others tell of a
meeting at "Dutch Henry's," immediately after the depar-
ture of the Rifles, at which the subsequently murdered men
swore to drive out all the Free State settlers within a given
time and reduce their houses to ashes. On the other hand,
Salmon Brown declares positively that "it was not the re-
port of any such meeting specifically that started us off to
Pottawatomie." Nor, as we have seen, could the news of this
meeting have reached the camp near Prairie City before
John Brown started for home. That the meeting occurred,
the Grants are positive, but it, too, must be discarded as a
motive for the bloody deed on the Pottawatomie.

There remains, then, the question how far the threats
against the Browns, heard in the Buford camp, and those
made against the Free State settlers on the Pottawatomie as
a whole, were the controlling reason for the crime. It is im-
possible to avoid the belief that they were a most important
factor in moving John Brown to adopt Border Ruffian tac-
tics. Salmon Brown declares that his father and the others
were well aware that the pro-slavery men of the Doyle-Sher-
man type had decided on extreme measures against them.
The stories of Bondi, Weiner, Benjamin and Townsley all
had their effect upon the Browns. According to Horace Haskell

178 JOHN BROWN

Day, son of Orson Day, when his father went to Weiner's
store, which was just one and a half miles from the Doyles'
cabin, he found a notice up that all Free State men must get
off the creek within thirty days, or have their throats cut.
Weiner said to Mr. Day: "We ought to cut their throats."
Mr. Day not consenting, Weiner said: "That is the way we
serve them in Texas," — from which place he had come."
Orson Day being a brother-in-law of John Brown and resid-
ing directly opposite John Brown, Jr., it would have been
easy for him to repeat this happening to his relatives. There
are witnesses like Mr. M. V. B. Jackson, who heard from
Weiner, Bondi and Townsley direct the threats made against
them. Mr. Jackson testifies that three days was the time of
grace allowed to Weiner, Benjamin and Bondi, at the expira-
tion of which they were to leave under pain of lynch law."
John B. Manes is another witness to Benjamin's being warned.
"I know," he has affirmed," "that there was a reign of ter-
ror, of which the men who were killed were the authors ; and
I am surprised that any one should believe that the killing of
these men was without reasonable excuse." He asks whether
the Free State men were to abandon Kansas, or to fold their
arms and await martrydom when their days of grace expired.
Or were they to slay the would-be murderers, to save them-
selves? Here again the question recurs: If John Brown knew
of the notice posted in Weiner's store, and was also aware
that the pro-slavery men had given the Free Soil settlers
but three or five days in which to leave, why did he march
off to Lawrence leaving the women and children defenceless
and the Doyles and Shermans free to do their worst? He
could not know that he would be free to return within twenty-
four hours, for the fate of Lawrence was not learned until the
company had marched twenty-five miles. For all any of the
men could foresee, they might be going ofif on a campaign
that would last for some days — perhaps even weeks.

It must not be forgotten, too, that threats of slicing a man's
throat, or cutting his heart out, or driving him away, were the
cheapest and most conspicuous product of Border Ruffian
activity. Every drunken pro-slavery man had a quiver-full
of them. The Squatter Sovereign has them on every page; the
blasphemy and promises of extermination that marked the

. MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 179

harangues of Atchison, Jones and men of that stamp are to be
found broadcast in the files of the Tribune and the volumes
of Gladstone, Redpath, Phillips, Sara Robinson and the other
contemporary Free Soil writers. The threats uttered on the
Pottawatomie must have been convincing, indeed, to incite
John Brown to do what the Border Ruffians only talked of
doing. But this merely adds to the mystery why the appeal
of Lawrence should have taken precedence over the safety of
Pottawatomie, as does the affirmation of Jason Brown that
a friendly pro-slavery man had given to the Rev. Mr. Adair
a list of those whose deaths had been agreed upon by his
pro-slavery friends, — a story of which Mr. Adair has left no
written record to aid his kinsman's reputation.'^

What did John Brown himself ever assign as the reason?
According to E. A. Coleman, Brown, by means of his surveying
disguise, obtained the views of the murdered men and found
that they "had each one committed murder in his heart and
according to the Scriptures they were guilty of murder and
I felt justified in having them killed." These words Cole-
man places in John Brown's mouth ; ''' they are confirmed by
Colonel Edward Anderson's report of Brown's statement to
him that the murdered men were planning to "wipe out the
Free Soil settlers." " According to Coleman's story, therefore.
Brown, assuming the powers of judge or military autocrat,
adjudged the Doyles, Shermans and Wilkinson deserving of
death because they had had murder in their hearts. If this
version be accepted, we must decide that John Brown be-
lieved planning murder to be worse than murder itself. We
have here a most extraordinary confusion of ethics and morals.
Granting that persecution, and even murders, had followed
similar threats in other portions of Kansas, and that the ter-
rible happenings in the Territory were ever present in John
Brown's brain, one cannot but wonder that he assumed to
himself the functions of chief executioner and deemed himself
the one to say just when and how the Sixth Commandment,
" Thou shalt not kill," should be violated. He was not content
merely to defend Free State homes and patrol the roads; it
did not occur to him to form a vigilance committee and warn
the pro-slavery rascals to cease from troubling and remove
from the neighborhood, as did in another year James Mont-

1 80 JOHN BROWN

gomery, in Linn County ; he was not even content to leave to
the Almighty, to whom he nightly prayed, that vengeance
which the Lord has reserved as His.

But there are plenty of other excuses offered for the crime,
after the various motives we have examined are discarded.
It is pointed out that there was no law for Free Soil men in
the Territory, — only Catos and Lecomptes on the bench to
dispense injustice. There was no legal road to safety. It is
averred that the Free Soil settlers were few, half starved, sick
and intimidated, grown so spiritless, the lack of resistance at
Lawrence indicated, as to call for some deed of violence to
rouse them from their helpless inertia. To prove to the Border
Ruffians that they could no longer destroy and murder with
impunity, such a terrible warning as that given at Pottawato-
mie was, therefore, absolutely necessary. Again, it is insisted
that John Brown's foresight, his consecrated sagacity and
devotion to the cause, made him strike the blow in order to
force men to take sides, in order to bring on the righteous and
necessary war which, to John Brown, was the sole solution
of the issue in Kansas. If this conflicts with the widely held
theory that the Pottawatomie killings, by ending the outrages
in the neighborhood of Osawatomie and stopping the aggres-
siveness of the Border Ruffians, was a peace measure, it does
not deter many from excusing the crime as an act of war exe-
cuted in war time. The dogs of war, it is argued, had been let
slip by Jones and Donaldson, and as the Doyles, Shermans
and Wilkinson were spies and informers in league with the
enemy, they richly merited their fate, which came only just
in time to save the Osawatomie settlers from general expul-
sion, if not murder. Then, too, it was said to be but a just'
act of retaliation for the sack of Lawrence and retribution for
the killing of R. P. Brown, Dow, Barber, Stewart, Jones and
Collins; it is even alleged, by miscounting these six victims of
Border Ruffian violence, that John Brown was not eager to
kill Dutch Henry, but chose his five victims as a deliberate
offset to the five Free Soilers killed up to that time. Next, it
is asserted that John Brown was merely carrying out the
orders of Free Soil leaders who, for motives of policy, did not
admit at the time that this killing was done with their con-
nivance and consent. Finally, it is averred by at least one

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE i8i

biographer that John Brown was divinely inspired, — God-
driven to this dire act, because the'Deity "makes His will
known in advance to certain chosen men and women who
perform it consciously or unconsciously."

Into this field of theological speculation the historian unfor-
tuh'atelyTannot ■enterT''hS"is limited fo^udgiiig'orTecording
human motive's; particularly as this theory of divine inspira-
tion has for centuries been the excuse for many of the most
terrible crimes in history. /More capable of critical examina-
tion is the argument that there existed no law and no courts
for Free State men; but if the absence of law and just courts
sanctions midnight assassination, the world is far behindhand
with its canonizations. The road to legal safety under such
conditions does not lead by the way of private vengeance ; the
sole substitute is, as has already been pointed out, lynch law
openly proclaimed and openly administered. That the Potta-
watomie murders cannot be both a peace and a war measure
is obvious. Unfortunately, as will be set forth when the conse-
quences of the crime are examined, the evidence shows that
it neither ended the attacks upon individuals nor stopped
the raids of large armed bodies, as has been alleged by many
writers, including John Speer. He declared, January 30, 1886,
that "the spirit of murder was checked,"'^ while F. G.
Adams, Secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, on Octo-
ber 25, 1883, averred of Brown's kilHngs that they "put an
end to the assassination of Free State men for all time," " —
as if, for example, Frederick Brown and David Garrison were
not shot down like dogs on August 30, 1856, to say nothing
of the cold-blooded murders after Pottawatomie of Hoppe,
Cantrall, Hoyt, Gay and William Phillips, and almost num-
berless assaults upon persons and attacks upon private pro-
perty. These might, it is true, have continued had John
Brown struck no blow at Pottawatomie, for the Border Ruf-
fians were drunk with their success in looting Lawrence; but
it certainly cannot be true that they were "stopped" by the
assassinations. But as a war measure, John Brown's murders
were beyond doubt successful; they were actually followed
by more killings of Free State men than had taken place
previously in the Territory; they led to the burning of Osa-
watomie and other settlements, to attacks upon the Border

1 82 JOHN BROWN

Ruffian "forts," and to the stand-up fighting at Black Jack
and Osawatomie. If John Brown intended to set men at each
others' throats, to make every man take sides, to bring mat-
ters in Kansas to a head, he was wholly successful when he
lived up to the Biblical doctrine he often quoted, that "with-
out the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

As to the theory that John Brown was directed by higher
authorities in the Free State ranks, the best evidence is a
recently discovered letter from Samuel C. Pomeroy to Re-
becca B. Spring, written in Georgetown, D. C, January i6,
i860, just after Brown's execution, when the events of 1856
should have been fresh in his memory, and here first printed:

"I am waiting here quietly to see the progress of Mason's 'In-
vestigating Committee.' They have declined to summon me — or
any other man, who dare under oath, defend John Brown ! ! I dont
care what are the consequences to me politically, I will, upon the
first occasion, at the Capitol of this country — defend that old man,
who offered up himself gloriously — from the charge or crime of
murder ! No blow had been struck by any one of us — up to May
2 1st, 1856. I was in command as Chairman of the 'Committee of
Public Safety,' at Lawrence, upon that memorable occasion.

"I insisted — though our Town was threatened with destruction

— and the invading army was then within 12 miles of Town ! and
numbered over 1200 men — well armed — -That we should give
the Government a fair opportunity to protect us, And to this end I
applied to those in authority. But in the course of that day I found
that the Government was yielded to the 'border Rufhans.' — I still
insisted (though against the earnest appeal of John Brown & his
men) that the government should commit the first overt act. And I
told them, then and there, that so soon as I could demonstrate before
this Country that the Government was powerless for protection,
Then I was with them, for taking care of ourselves ! So we stood still,
upon that day and saw our Presses & buildings madly destroyed. The
few monuments of our civilization, which had been hastily erected,
were strewn to the winds, or consumed in the flames !

"Upon the morning of the 22nd of May we called a little meeting

— of sad but earnest men. Taking each other by the hand we con-
venanted, each with the other, that what there was left to us in this
life, and if need he, all we hoped for in the life to come, should now
he offered up, to the FREEDOM of KANSAS, and the country.

"A poorly written badly spelled note, passed round that meeting
that Doyl, Wilkinson, Sherman, and others upon the Pottawatomie
Creek, had insulted the females of one family, whose head was then
present, and warned others under pain of death to leave the Terri-

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 183

tory by the 25th Inst., that very week! What could I say? Or do?
I had withheld our impatient men, until before us lay the smoking
ruins of the home we loved the best, of any spot upon earth.

"You know what was said and 'did.' As the Government af-
forded no protection to us, even when we placed ourselves under
its special protection, it was then and there Resolved — that every
man be [we ?] met that invaded or threatened our lives, or homes,
or our families & friends, should without delay of law or courts, or
officers, be driven to Missouri or to death 1 1

"We separated that morning, each to the great work of life, viz.
to do his duty — to himself — to his country & to his God. John
Brown did not personly go the whole distance with the party that
went down upon Pottawatomy creek. But he approved of the course
decided upon for action, — and SO DID I ! And I am not now going
to repudiate old Brown, or to shrink from the responsibility !

"He did not commit the 'murders' as they are called, but we all
then endorsed them, — and from that hour the invaders fled. That
one act struck terror into the hearts of our enemies, and gave us the
dawning of success! Those deaths I have no doubt saved a multi-
tude of lives, and was the cheapest sacrifice that could be offered ! " '°

Unfortunately for the accuracy of this statement, we know
now that neither the Brown women nor those of the Grant
family were insulted. The testimonies of fifty- two witnesses
of value in connection with the Pottawatomie murders have
been examined for light on this subject. Pomeroy is the only
one to suggest that John Brown was in Lawrence on May 21
and 22, with the exception of Daniel W. Wilder, who even adds
that he was there with six sons and his son-in-law." It is not
conceivable that John Brown could have been there and have
fired no shot to defend the tq^wn. Moreover, his surviving
sons and son-in-law know nothing about it — Salmon Brown
denying it positively. If this is not enough, the character of
John Brown's own statements should suffice; he would never
have suppressed the fact that he saw Lawrence destroyed ; and
finally, the dates he gives for his movements prior to the mur-
ders, corroborated by many witnesses, render it physically
impossible for him to have been in Lawrence at the time speci-
fied.

The belief that John Brown was inspired by Robinson,
Pomeroy and Lane was, however, held by others. Congress-
man Oliver made the general charge, in his minority report to
the Howard Committee Report, that Brown's victims "were

1 84 JOHN BROWN

deprived of their lives ... in consequence of the insurrec-
tionary movements . . . set on foot by the reckless leaders of
the Tokepa Convention,"" — an allegation not specific enough
to call for refutation in this connection. In a letter written
on February 8, 1875, Captain Samuel Walker alleges that
Brown complained to him in the summer of 1856 that Lane
and Robinson were instigators of the crime, but would not sus-
tain him in it." Captain Walker also informed Frank B. San-
born that Lane and Robinson £isked him to commit the same
murders, but that he indignantly refused to do so.*" John
Brown, Jr., once charged Robinson in great detail with asking
his father in the following September to dispose of the leading
pro-slavery men by killing, which request, he said, was indig-
nantly spurned.*^ Henry Thompson testifies similarly.*" But
Robinson positively denied the charge, as he most emphati-
cally denied any complicity in the Pottawatomie murders.
One cannot have entire respect for Governor Robinson's
character ; in this instance he at one time likened John Brown
to Jesus Christ, and hailed him as a saviour of Kansas, only
to turn around a couple of years later and denounce him, —
even to speak of the "punishment due John Brown for his
crimes in Kansas."** On the other hand, John Brown, Jr.'s
mind was, unfortunately, not always clear. It is important to
remember here that John Brown at no time during the rest
of his life made any positive statement which would indicate
that he was acting under orders in doing his bloody work
at Pottawatomie, — not even when, in jail and facing death,
he was asked by Judge Russell, of Boston, for a definite
statement as to his responsibility for the crime.*^ If he cher-
ished the feeling of anger against Robinson and Lane which
Walker declared he voiced in 1856, he does not appear to have
expressed it again.

To mitigate the abruptness and cruelty of the tragedy, it
is often loosely asserted that the victims were duly tried by
a jury. John Sherman stated that he had this from John
Brown's own lips shortly after the crime.** But no one else
avers this, while the survivors of the massacre, Henry Thomp-
son and Salmon Brown, deny it. No member of the Brown
family has advanced this theory. The testimony of Townsley
and the families of the murdered men as to the speed of the

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 185

executions and their taking place consecutively is also con-
clusive, as is the fact that no juryman has ever been dis-
covered. 5

In the light of all the evidence now accumulated, the truth
would seem to be that John Brown came to Kansas bringing
arms and ammunition, eager to fight, and convinced that
force alone would save Kansas. He was under arms at the
polls within three days of his arrival in Kansas, to shed blood
to defend the voters, if need be, and he was bitterly disap-
pointed that the Wakarusa "war" ended without a single
conflict. Thereafter he believed that a collision was inevitable
in the spring, and Jones and Donaldson proved him to be cor-
rect. Fired with indignation at the wrongs he witnessed on
every hand, impelled by the Covenanter's spirit that made
him so strange a figure in the nineteenth century, and believ-
ing fully that there should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth, he killed his men in the conscientious belief that he
was a faithful servant of Kansas and of the Lord. He killed
not to kill, but to free; not to make wives widows and children
fatherless, but to attack on its own ground the hideous insti-
tution of human slavery, against which his whole life was a
protest. He pictured himself a modern crusader as much em-
powered to remove the unbeliever as any armored searcher
after the Grail. It was to his mind a righteous and necessary
act ; if he concealed his part in it and always took refuge in
the half-truth that his own hands were not stained, that
was as near to a compromise for the sake of policy as this
rigid , self-denying Roundhead ever came. Naturally a tender-
hearted man, he directed a particularly shocking crime with-
out remorse, because the men killed typified to him the slave-
drivers who counted their victims by the hundreds. It was to
him a necessary carrying into Africa of the war in which he
firmly desired himself engaged./And always it must not be
forgotten that his motives were wholly unselfish, and that his
aims were none other than the freeing of a race. With his
ardent, masterful temperament, he needed no counsel from a
Lane or a Robinson to make him ready to strike a blow, or to
tell him that the time for it had come. The smoke of burning
Lawrence was more than sufficient.

If this interpretation of the man and his motives lifts him

i86 JOHN BROWN

far above the scale of that Border Ruffian who boasted that he
would have the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours and
actually killed and scalped the very first one he met, it can-
not be denied that the Border Ruffians who sacked Lawrence
believed as thoroughly in the justice of their cause, and their
right to establish in Kansas what was to them a sacred institu-
tion, as John Brown did in his. Their leaders had told them of
an agreement in Congress that Kansas should be a slave State
and Nebraska free.^* Hence their belief that the North had
broken this compact rendered them particularly bitter against
the Free Soilers. It was to them also a holy war in which they
were engaged, — even with its admixture of whiskey and law-
lessness, characteristics of the Southern "poor white " civiliza-
tion of the period. If one grants to John Brown absolution
for the Pottawatomie murders because he struck in what was
to him a moral crusade, one must come near granting it to
the Border Ruffian Hamilton, who made eleven men, most of
whom he had never seen before, stand up in line on May
19, 1858, that he might shoot them down.*' In his behalf it
could much more truthfully be said that there was war in Linn
County in 1858 than that there was war about Osawatomie in
1856. Hamilton doubtless intended also to send terror to the
hearts of his enemies, to drive them from the Territory. That
the five men he killed were of blameless reputation, while
John Brown's five victims were weak or bad characters, does
not alter the case from the moral or the legal point of view.
Murder is murder, whatever the character of the victims; it
remains, in its essence, unchanged in these two cases, even
though the leader of one set of self-appointed executioners
has been excused by his friends, and the other universally
execrated. Might not Hamilton, too, have been portrayed
as the tool of a vengeful Deity? Might he not, to use James
Freeman Clarke's characterization of John Brown, have
maintained that he believed in "fighting fire with fire," that
"there was no malice or desire for vengeance in his constitu-
tion"? 88 Certainly, Hamilton's catholic choice of victims —
he seized them in the fields and on the roads as he met them
— would prove that he also killed without personal enmity.
It may be that Hamilton thought that by so blood-curdling
an assassination he could stop the hostile operations of armed

MURDER ON THE POTTAWATOMIE 187

Free Soil bands led by Montgomery, Jennison — admittedly a
bad character — and others. If this theory is wrong, Hamil-
ton's Marais des Cygnes massacre ought at least to have
estopped James Freeman Clarke and other defenders of Brown
from saying that after Brown's victims were killed, "the coun-
try had peace." It should have prevented any likening of
John Brown to Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, whose orders
killed thousands in " another war , ' ' — as if war could exist save
under those rules of war which as peremptorily forbid mid-
night assassination as they do the violation of women and the
poisoning of wells. Finally, a real war-commander always
assumes the responsibility for his acts, while John Brown was
ever disingenuous about the Pottawatomie massacres.

From the point of view of ethics, John Brown's crime onS
the Pottawatomie cannot be successfully palliated or excused. ^
It must ever remain a complete indictment of his judgment
and wisdom ; a dark blot upon his memory ; a proof that, how-
ever self-controlled, he had neither true respect for the laws
nor for human life, nor a knowledge that two wrongs never
make a right. Call him a Cromwellian trooper with the Old
Testament view of the way of treating one's enemies, as did
James Freeman Clarke, if you please; it is nevertheless true
that Brown lived in the nineteenth century and was properly
called upon to conform to its standard of morals and right
living. What would become of society if it permitted all
whose spirits would hark back to the modes of life of other
times and other morals to have their way? Describing Brown
as a misplaced Crusader cannot, moreover, conceal the regret-
table fact that the Pottawatomie murders deprived the Free
Soil cause of an enormous moral advantage. Up to May, 1856,
its adherents had suffered, bled and died, without any blood-
guilt attaching to them. This gave them, as unoffending viqf
tims of pro-slavery fury, an unsurpassed standing in the court
of public opinion. Their hands were cleani^hey had been
attending to their own affairs and were citing out against
wrong and injustice by the time-honored methods of protest,
— through the press, the ballot-box, the right of assembly, the
setting up a government of their own to be passed upon by
the highest tribunals of the land, that is, the courts and the
Congress of the United States. The Free State leaders had

1 88 JOHN BROWN

hitherto counselled peaceful submission to wrong as the surest
way to the sympathies of the nation, and to that eventual
justice which no believer in American institutions could
despair of, even in 1856, when the whole weight of the Federal
Government and its troops had been thrown against the Free
Soilers. For the court of last resort, the conscience of the
American people, had not yet been heard from as it was but a
few years later. /Of a sudden, all this great moral superiority
was flung away; *' the sack of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie
murders, brought about a complete change of policy. / The
militant Abolitionists of the John Brown, Horace Greeley,
Henry Ward Beecher type reaped their harvest. The Sharp's
rifles, " Beecher's Bibles," now came into play. But the South
at last had its tu-quoque. "You sacked Lawrence," said the
North. " But you resorted to the vilest of midnight assassina-
tions of unarmed men and boys," replied the South/ Sumner
could not have delivered unaltered his wonderful philippic,
the "Crime AgainsJ Kansas," after the crimes against Mis-
souri had begun. /There was now blood upon both sides.

For John Brown no pleas can be made that will enable him
to escape coming before the bar of historical judgment. There
his wealth of self-sacrifice, and the nobility of his aims, do noi
avail to prevent a complete condemnation of his bloody crim(
at Pottawatomie, or a just penalty for his taking human lif(
without warrant or authority. If he deserves to live in hi&
tory, it is not because of his cruel, gruesome, reprehensible
acts on the Pottawatomie, but despite them.*" /

CHAPTER VI
CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK

WAR! WAR!

Eight Pro-Slavery men murdered by the AboUtionists
in Franklin County, K. T.

LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!

We learn from a despatch just received by Col. A. G.
Boone, dated at Paola, K. T., May 26, 1856, and
signed by Gens. Heiskell and Barbee, that the reported
murder of eight pro-slavery men in Franklin County,
K. T., is but too true.

It was thus that the Westport, Missouri, Border Times gave
to its readers, on May 27, 1856, the news that was intended
to strike terror to their hearts. The only reason for the crime
the despatch assigned was that "the abolitionists (the court
being in session) were afraid that these men [their victims]
would be called upon to give evidence against them, as many
of them were charged with treason." The Border Times sup-
plemented this news with an appeal to the South for men
and money, because civil war with all its horrors now reigned
in Kansas. The Jefferson, Missouri, Inquirer of the 29th, and
the Lexington, Missouri, Express of the 26th reprinted the
Western Despatch's account of the crime and also its edito-
rial assertion that "for every Southern man thus butchered
a decade [dozen?] of these poltroons should bite the dust."
Henry Clay Pate, correspondent of the St. Louis Missouri
Republican, wrote on May 30 that no personal grudges ex-
isted between the murdered and the murderers, "in fact no
cause whatever can be or is attempted to be assigned for
their savage barbarity but that the deceased were proslav-
ery in their sentiments." Thirteen persons supposed to be con-
nected with the crime were under arrest, and if ever lynch laws
were justifiable, in Pate's opinion this was the time. The pro-

190 JOHN BROWN

slavery Kansas Weekly Herald of Leavenworth, in its issue
of June 7, reprinted a column and a half of news from the
Lecompton Union, in the course of which that newspaper sar-
castically said:

"These are the 'Free State men' who have been so deeply out-
raged by the law and order party, but have, like martyrs, passed
through the fire, without the stain of blood upon their skirts or the
mark of pillage upon their consciences. This is the party so pure
and untarnished with dishonor that their very natures revolt at
and recoil from the countenancing of even a minor disgrace, much
less the foul assassination of Sheriff Jones. This is the party that
held an indignation meeting in Lawrence, headed by Charles Rob-
inson and A. H. Reeder, passed resolutions and even offered a re-
ward for the apprehension of him who shot Jones. . . . These are
the men who are cursing the Marshal and posse for blowing up this
' Northern Army's ' fortress and destroying their mouthpieces and
are denominating them plunderers and committers of arson, and
this news is taken up by their agents in the North, heralded forth
from one extreme to the other as truth, asking protection for these
innocent free state creatures."

Another correspondent of the Missouri Republican, one
J. Bernard, reporting from Westport the arrival there of Mrs.
Doyle, added that "a more cruel murder has scarcely been
committed;" it was a "foul and inhuman act." The fighting
Squatter Sovereign, of Atchison, was distinctly sobered by the
news from Kansas, but still ready to fight, for on June lo it
thus freed its ever surcharged mind :

"Midnight murders, assassinations, burglaries, and arson seem
now to be the watchwords of the so-called Free State party. Whilst
those rebellious subjects confined themselves to the resistance of
the law, in their attempts to make arrests, and execute processes in
their hands, the pro-slavery party in the territory was determined
to stand by the law, and aid the officers in executing process and
the courts in administering justice. And that we have no doubt
is still the determination of every pro-slavery man, but there is a
time for all things. Self-protection — defence of one's life, family
and property, are rights guaranteed to all law-abiding citizens;
and the manner and mode of keeping off murderers, assassins, &c.,
are not confined to any very strict rules of law. . . . Hundreds of
the Free State men, who have committed no overt acts, but have
only given countenance to those reckless murderers, assassins and
thieves, will of necessity share the same fate of their brethren. If
civil war is to be the result in such a conflict, there cannot be, and
will not be, any neutrals recognized."

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 191

The St. Louis Morning Herald on June 13 informed its
readers, on the authority of a Lecompton correspondent,
that: "The AboUtionists are continuing their assassinations
and plunder. Robinson has given orders for a guerrilla war.
Besides the murders at Ossawatomie, by the noted Brown,
others have been attempted in the neighborhood." Six days
later, hearing from Lawrence that the Pottawatomie massacre
was done for the deliberate purpose of impressing the Border
Ruffians, it said: " Here is the avowal of a man who ought to
know ; he tells you that midnight assassination, which revives
in all their atrocity the most fiendish barbarities of the darkest
ages and which, we repeat, is without parallel in Christendom
since the Revolution in France, is deliberately planned to strike
terror into the hearts of political opponents! Whether such
will be the effect of the lesson remains to be seen." Editorially,
the Morning Herald had already expressed the hope that the
pro-slavery party would not retaliate in kind and would re-
frain from lynching the assassins, while its rival, the Missouri
Republican, was quick to see the advantage which lay in
declaring that this bloody outcome of civil war was the "legit-
imate result of the counsels of such preachers as Beecher."
Curiously enough, as James Ford Rhodes points out,' the
Democratic press of the country as a whole, except that on
the border, made comparatively little use of the killings. One
Northern newspaper, the Burlington, Iowa, Gazette, denounced
them on June 25 ; the Liberator, whose editor, William Lloyd
Garrison, strongly protested against the Sharp's rifle teachings
of Beecher and the militant Abolitionists, ^ wholly failed to
record Brown's crime. Senator Toombs, of Georgia, and Con-
gressman Oliver cited the murders in the course of speeches
in the Senate and House. But the Republican newspapers,
intentionally or unintentionally, deceived their readers by
garbled reports of the crime. It was generally represented
that five of a pro-slavery gang, caught hanging a Free State
settler, were shot by the latter's friends as they came to his
rescue, and the Republican press took extremely good care
not to give much space to the affair. As Mr. Rhodes explains,
the hitherto excellent character of the Free State settlers
rendered it impossible for the East to credit the story, or for
the Democrats to bring it home to them as they should have.

192 JOHN BROWN

Only in Missouri did the Southern press make of it all that was
possible. The address of the Law and Order Party to their
friends of the South, signed by Atchison, B. F. Stringfellow,
Major Buford and others on June 21,^ naturally used the
massacre to the utmost, declaring, among other things, that
Wilkinson had been "flayed alive," and that besides the "six
victims," the bodies of four others were still missing.

Governor Shannon promptly reported the murders to Presi-
dent Pierce. From Lecompton, May 31, he wrote: *

"... Comment is unnecessary. The respectability of the par-
ties and the cruelties attending the murders have produced an
extraordinary state of excitement in that portion of the Territory,
which has heretofore remained comparatively quiet. ... I hope
the offenders may be brought to Justice ; if so, it may allay to a
great extent the excitement, otherwise I fear the consequences."

Governor Shannon's anxiety was justified. On the 27th of
May the news of the Pottawatomie crimes was posted all over
Leavenworth. The leading Free State business men were
arrested, and, according to an eye-witness, William H. Coffin,
only the urgent solicitation of such men as General Richardson
and other leading pro-slavery officials prevented their meeting
with violence.^ Other influential Free State men were ban-
ished. Four days later, the 31st, when Governor Shannon
was writing his report, a meeting of the Law and Order Party
was held in Leavenworth to protest against the Pottawatomie
murders. At this gathering, so the Tribune reported,* "leading
pro-slavery citizens — some of them heretofore moderate
men — were the officers and speechmakers. Violent speeches
were made, and resolutions of the same character were passed,
condemning all Free State men without distinction, and
appointing a Vigilance Committee of fifty to watch their
movements, and to warn offenders from the Territory." '

At Fort Scott, the Southeastern rendezvous of Border Ruf-
fians, the news that Lawrence was burned was received with
a general feeling of joy, but it was followed by the rumor that
at Osawatomie five, and some said nine, pro-slavery men had
been called up in the night and, as soon as they made their
appearance, had been shot by the Abolitionists. This caused
a general feeling of alarm and indignation, and the young men
of Fort Scott, on their own responsibility, organized them-

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 193

selves into a "watch guard " to protect the Fort from invasion
by the Abolitionists, for, to add to the excitement, it had been
currently reported that Fort Scott was to be burned as a
retaliation for the destruction of Lawrence.* Some of the Mis-
sourians at once took the offensive. Although Mrs. Robinson
was of the opinion that "the news of the horrible massacre
fell upon the ears of the Border Ruffians like a thunderbolt
out of a clear sky, and carried fear and trembling into many
Missouri homes," and that "his [Brown's] name became one
of terror, like that of hobgoblins to silly children, or that of
Lafitte upon the sea," ' Captain Henry Clay Pate, the fighting
correspondent of the Missouri Republican, went at once with
his company to Paola, eight miles from Osawatomie, to assist
the United States Marshal in arresting the Pottawatomie
Creek murderers. On June 2, General J. W. Whitfield, the del-
egate to Congress, wrote from Westport to the editor of the
Border Times that news had reached there of disaster to Cap-
tain Pate's company. This was his statement of the situation :

There can scarcely be a doubt that this small force has been
annihilated. This town, where the congressional committee are
now taking evidence, has been thronged during the day with men
with their families, fleeing from the territory to avoid assassination
and butchery. I am constantly in receipt of letters and appeals for
protection. The cowardly and fiendish manner in which the assas-
sinations have been perpetrated, particularly those on Pottawato-
mie creek (which I am informed by Judge Cato just in from that
place have not been exaggerated in the public accounts, indeed do
not equal the reality,) leaves but little hope that these abolition
monsters can be actuated by any other consideration than that of
fear. I have, therefore, determined to start in an hour or two, with
as many men as can be raised, in the hope, if not too late, of reliev-
ing the little band, under Capt. Pate, and afford what protection I
can to the peaceful citizens of the territory, and restore in it order
and peace. ...

Jno. W. Whitfield.'" ;

Two of John Brown's sons fell readily into the hands of the
Missourians, — John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown. They had
spent but one night in the Adair cabin, — the one in which, as
we have seen, John Brown, Jr., became insane. Leaving their
wives the next morning, in fear lest their presence attract the
Border Ruffians, they set off, Jason with the idea of surren-

194 JOHN BROWN

dering to the United States troops and demanding protection.
Jason shortly thereafter encountered a body of Border Ruf-
fians headed by the notorious "Rev." Martin White. He has
thus told the story of the encounter: "

" I did not recognize in the leader the man who had led the squad
of ' steer hunters ' to our camp when we first reached the Territory.
But he was that same Martin White. I walked straight up to him.
'Can you tell me the way to Taway Jones's?' 'You are one of the
very men we are looking for! Your name is Brown. I knew your
father. I knew your brother!' shouted White. Up came all the
guns clicking. 'Down with him!' the squad yelled. 'You are our
prisoner,' said White. 'Got any arms?' 'A revolver.' 'Hand it
out.' 'Now go ahead of the horses.' I was weak with ague, excite-
ment, fatigue. But I was terribly afraid of torture. I knew what
these men had done to others, and all my habitual stammering left
me. 'My name is Jason Brown,' I said, standing facing them. 'I
am a Free State man, and what you call an Abolitionist. I have
never knowingly injured a human being. Now if you want my blood
for that, there is a mark for you.' And I pulled open the bosom of
my shirt. I expected to be shot to pieces. And they took that for
courage! Three-fourths of them laid their guns across their saddles
and began to talk friendly. Martin White said: 'We won't kill you
now. But you are our prisoner and we hold every man a scoundrel
till he is pro-\?en honest.' One man, a villainous face, kept his gun
up. I dared not turn my back, until I had backed thirty rods or so,
I wanted to be killed quickly, not to be tortured. They drove me
four miles at a fast walk. Then we came to a cabin and store. I was
having chills every day, then, and at that moment my chill came
on. They gave me a sack of coffee for a pillow. The man who had
kept his gun levelled came and looked at me, with his bowie knife
raised. ' Do you see anything bad about me?' I asked. ' I don't see
anything good about ye!' he snarled, but went away. As the fever
came on they put me on a horse, tied my feet beneath him and my
arms behind me and took me, with a guard of twenty men, to Paoia,
where were about three hundred armed pro-slavery men. One flour-
ished a coil of new hemp rope over his head as we rode up. ' Swing
him up! Swing him up!' he shouted. They hustled me over to a
tree and that man flung his rope end over a limb and stood ready.
I sat down on the grass by the tree. I did n't suppose I had a friend
in that crowd. Then came what changed my whole mind and life
as to my feeling toward slave-holders. I can't see a Southerner or
a Southern soldier, now, whatever he thinks of me, without wanting
to grasp his two hands.

"As I sat there waiting under the dangling rope, I saw three men
aside from the yelling crowd, differently dressed from the rest. One
of them came quietly, tapped me on the shoulder and showed me a

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 195

scrap of paper in the palm of his hand. ' Whose writing is that? ' asked
he. 'My father's.' 'Is old John Brown your father?' 'Yes.' Never
another word did he say, but went around and spoke to the crowd,
who made so much noise that I could not hear what he said. Then
he came back, (he was Judge Jacobs, of Lexington, Kentucky, and
one of his companions was Judge Cato,) and quietly said to me:
' Come with me to my house and I will treat you like my own son,
but we must hold you prisoner.' Mrs. Doyle was also staying in that
house and we all sat at the same table for meals. She said nothing.
There I was, one lone coward, and about forty proslavery men in
the house that night. . . . On the third night John was brought in.
We lay together and I slept soundly on the front side of the bed.
In the night there was a sudden commotion and a crowd of men
rushed in. One brandished a bowie knife over me as if to drive it
into my right side. I slept on. John bared my heart, and, pointing
to it, said, 'Strike there.' They took me away, two men holding my
tied arms, in the middle of the night, leaving John, up to the Shaw-
nee Mission. But they were afraid to keep me there and the same
night brought me back again. . . ."

Jason did not see John again for about two weeks. Then the
latter was becoming sane. But presently a squad arrived to
escort Jason and John to Osawatomie.

"Capt. Wood himself came into the room where we two were
sleeping, seized John by the collar with, — 'Come out here, sir,'
and jerked him out of bed. Wood himself bound John's wrists be-
hind him, and then his upper arms, using small, hard hemp rope,
and he set his teeth and pulled with all his force, tightening the
turns. Later another rope some forty feet long was passed between
these two, to drive him by. Outside the leader of the squad which
was to take us to Osawatomie (I think this was Pate) was calling
orders to his men. 'Oyez, Oyez, Oyez,' he shouted. 'Form a line
of battle.'

"They drove John afoot all the way from Paola to Osawatomie.
Me, on the other hand, they carried in a wagon. When I saw John
in the new camp, (they had to change camp as the horses grazed
the grass off,) John was a maniac and in a terrible condition. They
had never loosened the cords around his upper arms and the flesh
was swollen so that the cords were covered. They had driven him
through the water of Bull Creek and the yellow flints at the bottom
had cut through his boots and terribly lacerated his feet. I found
him chained by each ankle, with an ox-cart chain, to the center
pole of the guard tent. John, who then fancied himself commander
of the camp, was shrieking military orders, jumping up and down
and casting himself about. Capt. Wood said to me: 'Keep that
man still.' ' I can't keep an insane man still,' said I. ' He is no more
insane than you are. If you don't keep him still, we'll do it for you.'

196 JOHN BROWN

I tried my best, but John had not a glimmer of reason and could not
understand anything. He went on yelling. Three troopers came
in. One struck him a terrible blow on the jaw with his fist, throw-
ing him on his side. A second knelt on him and pounded him with
his fist. The third stood off and kicked him with all his force in
the back of the neck. 'Don't kill a crazy man!' cried I. 'No more
crazy than you are, but we '11 fetch it out of him.' After that John
lay unconscious for three or four hours. We camped about one
and a half miles southeast of the Adairs. There we stayed about
two weeks. Then we were ordered to move again. They drove us
on foot, chained two and two. I was chained to George Partridge.
In a gang they drove us up right up in front of Adair's house. Aunt
Florilla came out and talked to Lieut. Iverson, (he was a cruel man!)
'What does this mean in this Land of the Free? What does this
mean that you drive these men like cattle and slaves ! ' and she went
on, giving him a terrible cutting. Iverson made no reply. Aunt gave
us all some little food. At Ottawa ford young Kilbourne dropped
in a sun-stroke. . . . We camped near 'Taway Jones's. All the
time these troops were looking for Old Brown. And father would
show himself from time to time, at daylight, at different places, at
a distance from his real camp. Then word would come to Wood that
Old Brown and his men had been seen at such a time, here or there
on Marais des Cygnes. Wood would order out his men to look for
him, forty miles off, the men would spend themselves hunting along
the river-bottoms, through dense, prickly tangles, and come back
at night worn out and furious, their horses done. I heard one say,
one night, out of his officer's hearing: ' D — d if I 'm going after Old
Brown any more. If I 'm ordered out any more, I '11 go into the
bushes and hide.' This kept up three or four days, and all the time
John Brown was camped so close that he heard the bugle calls, and
got his water at the same spring where they got theirs. He was
hoping for a chance to effect a rescue. One day word came to Wood
that John Brown was near and would attempt a rescue. Thereupon
he repeated the message to me, commenting: 'If such a rescue be
attempted and you try to escape, you will be the first ones that we
will shoot.'"

A correspondent of the New York Times thus described the
torture of the prisoners: ^^

"A scene then followed which has no parallel in a republican gov-
ernment. They were chained two and two by taking a common trace-
chain and using a padlock at each end, which was so fixed as to make
a close clasp around the ankle. Like a gang of slaves they were
thus driven on foot the whole distance at the rate of twenty-five
miles per day, dragging their chains after them. They were unac-
customed to travelling — their chains had worn upon their ankles
until one of them became quite exhausted and was put in a wagon.

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 197

What a humiliating, disgusting sight in a free government — to
see a chained gang of men who had committed no crime whatever,
driven sixty-five miles by their merciless prosecutors to attend a
trial, then have granted them an unconditional release and no pro-
vision for redress!"

This shocking ill-treatment of John Brown, Jr., which is
confirmed by much contemporary testimony, aroused indig-
nation in the North, and to its effect upon John Brown was
attributed, though erroneously, much of the father's bitter-
ness toward the slaveholders. According to a special corre-
spondent of the New York Tribune, First Lieutenant James
Mcintosh, First Cavalry, stated to him in June that the reason
for the arrest of John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, and the
severity of their treatment, was the soldiers' belief that they
were two of the Pottawatomie murderers." As for Captain
Thomas J. Wood, it was pointed out at the time that he was
a native of Kentucky, and it was, therefore, taken for granted
that his sympathies were with the South, and his cruelties
due to friendliness for the Border Ruffians. It is an interest-
ing fact that this officer later became, like Major Sedgwick, a
distinguished Northern general, one of the very best division
commanders in the Army of the Cumberland, in which he was
conspicuous for his wounds, his ability and his gallantry.
After spending two weeks on Ottawa Creek with his prisoners,
Captain Wood marched them to Lecompton via Palmyra and
Lawrence. Here, after an examination, Jason was released,
but John Brown, Jr., was held on the charge of high treason
because of his political activity, and was not released until
September 10. Jason returned to his own claim only to find
his house burned by the Border Ruffians and his cattle driven
off, though his oxen later returned to him, of themselves, from
Missouri. He built himself a shelter of fence rails, but soon
joined his father's company as the only place where he could
find safety. His wife and the other women went into the
Osawatomie block-house for security, for by this time almost
all the Free State men were out under arms."

John Brown and those who had participated with him in
the Pottawatomie murders arrived at Jason Brown's claim
and went into hiding on May 26, sending his son Owen to
Osawatomie a day or two later for provisions. Meeting his

198 JOHN BROWN

brother, John Brown, Jr., wandering in the brush, Owen
endeavored to persuade him to join his father, but he admit-
ted frankly that they were now hunted outlaws, likely to be
separated for months from all of their families. John then
declined, only to meet the worse fate already recorded. '^ On
Owen's return there came to the camp O. A. Carpenter, a Free
Soiler from the neighborhood of Prairie City, who offered to
pilot Brown to the headwaters of Ottawa Creek, as there were
two companies, one of cavalry and one of Missourians, then
in search of the murderers. The Brown party broke camp at
once and started at nightfall in the direction of Lawrence ; it
comprised then, besides the leader, John Brown, his sons Fred-
erick, Salmon, Owen and Oliver, Henry Thompson, Weiner,
Townsley, August Bondi and the guide. Carpenter, "Dutch
Henry's " horses furnishing some of the mounts. In the course
of the first few hours of the march, they rode straight into the
bivouac of a detachment of United States troops presuma-
bly in pursuit of them. It was near the crossing of the Marais
des Cygnes River, according to Owen Brown, and the troops
ordered them to halt. "It was dark," he narrates, "and fa-
ther called for the captain. In the meantime we placed our
horses one beyond the other and close together so as to look
like a small company. After some time the captain came out
in front of his tent and asked: 'Who are you?' I think father
replied, 'There are a few of us going towards Lawrence.' The
captain answered: 'All right, pass on.'" This these modern
successors of Robin Hood lost no time in doing, and in biv-
ouacking for the night some distance away, but not far from
the farm of Howard Carpenter, a brother of their guide.

The next day they entered some virgin woods on Ottawa
Creek and camped near a fine spring. Bondi, an able Aus-
trian Jew, who had put himself under Brown's leadership after
hearing of the Pottawatomie murders, has left the following
picture of their al fresco life in the forest primeval : "

"We stayed here up to the morning of Sunday, the ist of June,
and during these few days I fully succeeded in understanding the
exalted character of my old friend [John Brown]. He exhibited at
all times the most affectionate care for each of us. He also attended
to cooking. We had two meals daily, consisting of bread, baked in
skillets ; this was washed down with creek water, mixed with a little

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 199

ginger and a spoon of molasses to each pint. Nevertheless we kept
in excellent spirits; we considered ourselves as one family, allied to
one another by the consciousness that it was our duty to undergo
all these privations to further the good cause; had determined to
share any danger with one another, that victory or death might
find us together. We were united as a band of brothers by the love
and affection towards the man who with tender words and wise
counsel, in the depth of the wilderness of Ottawa creek, prepared
a handful of young men for the work of laying the foundation of a
free commonwealth. His words have ever remained firmly engraved
on my mind. Many and various were the instructions he gave dur-
ing the days of our compulsory leisure in this camp. He expressed
himself to us that we should never allow ourselves to be tempted
by any consideration to acknowledge laws and institutions to exist
as of right if our conscience and reason condemned them.

"He admonished us not to care whether a majority, no matter
how large, opposed our principles and opinions. The largest ma-
jorities were sometimes only organized mobs, whose bowlings never
changed black into white, or night into day. A minority conscious
of its rights, based on moral principles, would, under a republican
government, sooner or later become the majority."

On May 30 James Redpath, the correspondent of the St.
Louis Democrat and the Tribune, rode by accident into this
gathering. His description, too, is worth reprinting, since the
scene he portrays beyond doubt represents many similar ones
in John Brown's life: "

"I shall not soon forget the scene that here opened to my view.
Near the edge of the creek a dozen horses were tied, all ready sad-
dled for a ride for life, or a hunt after Southern invaders. A dozen
rifles and sabres were stacked around the trees. In an open space,
amid the shady and lofty woods, there was a great blazing fire with
a pot on it; a woman, bareheaded, with an honest, sun-burnt face,
was picking blackberries from the bushes; three or four armed men
were lying on red and blue blankets on the grass; and two fine-
looking youths were standing, leaning on their arms, on guard near
by. One of them was the youngest son of Old Brown, and the other
was 'Charley,' the brave Hungarian, who was subsequently mur-
dered at Ossawatomie. Old Brown himself stood near the fire, with
his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a large piece of pork in his hand.
He was cooking a pig. He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded
from his boots. The old man received me with great cordiality,
and the little band gathered about me. But it was for a moment
only; for the Captain ordered them to renew their work. He re-
spectfully but firmly forbade conversation on the Pottawatomie
affair; and said that, if I desired any information from the com-

200 JOHN BROWN

pany in relation to their conduct or intentions, he, as their Captain,
would answer for them whatever it was proper to communicate.

"In this camp no manner of profane language was permitted;
no man of immoral character was allowed to stay, excepting as a
prisoner of war. He made prayers in which all the company united,
every morning and evening; and no food was ever tasted by his
men until the Divine blessing had been asked on it. After every
meal, thanks were returned to the Bountiful Giver. Often, I was
told, the old man would retire to the densest solitudes, to wresde
with his God in secret prayer. One of his company subsequently
informed me that, after these retirings, he would say that the Lord
had directed him in visions what to do; that, for himself, he did not
love warfare, but peace, — only acting in obedience to the will of
the Lord, and fighting God's battles for His children's sake.

"It was at this time that the old man said to me : ' I would rather
have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera all together in my
camp, than a man without principles. It's a mistake, sir,' he con-
tinued, 'that our people make, when they think that bullies are the
best fighters, or that they are the men fit to oppose these Southern-
ers. Give me men of good principles; God-fearing men; men who
respect themselves; and, with a dozen of them, I will oppose any
hundred such men as these Buford ruffians!' "

Besides Charles Kaiser, subsequently murdered in cold
blood by the Border Ruffians, as Redpath records, Benjamin
Cochrane, a settler on the Pottawatomie, had joined Brown's
band, the latter bringing the news that Bondi's cabin had
been burned, his cattle stolen and Weiner's store plundered,
in plain view, he alleged, of United States troops. Captain
Samuel T. Shore, of the Prairie City Rifles, and a Dr. Westfall
also visited the camp, bringing news of Border Ruffian out-
rages and asking for aid. 1* Captain Shore brought provisions,
and on May 31 reported that a large force of Missourians had
gone into camp near Black Jack, a spring on the Santa Fe
trail, named for a group of "black jack" oaks. It was agreed
that Brown's party and as many men as Shore could get to-
gether should meet at Prairie City at ten o'clock in the fore-
noon of the next day. This took place. Brown's men attend-
ing a service held by an itinerant preacher, with part of the
congregation in a building, part outside. The services were
interrupted by the passing of three strangers in the direction
of Black Jack. Two of them were captured, and, when ques-
tioned by John Brown, admitted that they were from the
camp of Henry Clay Pate, the correspondent of the St. Louis

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 201

Missouri Republican, a captain in the Missouri militia and
a deputy United States Marshal, who, as already related, on
the news of the Pottawatomie murders, had marched at once
to Paola and, after assisting in the round-up there of Free
State men, including John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, had
pushed on into the Territory in search of the other Browns.

At that time twenty-four years of age, a native of Kanawha
County, Virginia, and a former student of the University of
Virginia, Pate had in him the making of a fine soldier, for he
died, well spoken of, as Colonel of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry,
in command of a brigade of cavalry, on the same day and, it is
said, within a hundred yards of where the brilliant Confed-
erate General, J. E. B. Stuart, was mortally wounded. This
was near Yellow Tavern, Virginia, May 11, 1864." Pate's,
John Brown's and Stuart's careers were thus strangely inter-
woven; Pate and Brown first met each other in battle at Black
Jack, and encountered Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart three days
later, when Pate's men were set free. Stuart and Brown met
again in the Harper's Ferry raid, and Pate visited his old
captor in jail shortly thereafter. They could not have fore-
seen that there would be three acts in all to their public ap-
pearance; or that all were to perish violently within eight
years, two of them after having won for themselves imper-
ishable renown, the one by reason of his death on the scafifold,
the other because of military achievements which have placed
him in the front rank of American cavalry leaders. There
could be no clearer illustration than the meeting of these
men of the direct relation of "Bleeding Kansas" to Harper's
Ferry and to the national convulsion of 1861 to 1865. Kansas
was but the prelude; what more natural than that some of
the actors who appeared in the prologue should hold the cen-
tre of the stage in the later acts of the greatest drama of the
nineteenth century?

Members of the startled Prairie City congregation were
eager to leave at once in search of Pate, particularly because
the sons of a preacher named Moore, who had been captured
near Westport the day before and taken off, learned now that
their father was in Pate's camp. Brown counselled, more
wisely, that the night be awaited and the enemy assailed at
sunrise. About forty men volunteered to go as the Prairie

202 JOHN BROWN

City Rifles, but their numbers dwindled rapidly as the distance
to the enemy decreased. At daylight on June 2 Brown's men
were fed, and at sunrise they were dismounted at the Black
Jack oaks, Frederick Brown < being left in charge of the
horses. 2° A half mile distant was Pate's camp, the covered
wagons in front, then the tents, and then, on higher ground
to the rear, the picketed horses and mules. A Missouri
sentinel fired the first shot. As to what happened thereafter,
there is a mass of testimony. Henry Clay Pate, in a rare
pamphlet published in New York in 1859,^1 has given his side
of the story. John Brown described the whole "battle" in a
letter to his family dated "near Brown's Station, June, 1856."
Both Pate and Brown discussed the fight at length in the
Tribune of June 13 and July 11 respectively, and Brown's
Tribune letter, hitherto entirely overlooked by his various
biographers, must be taken as the final word in settling sev-
eral long-disputed points. Besides the principal actors. Lieu-
tenant Brockett, Bondi, Owen Brown, Henry Thompson,
Salmon Brown and the preacher Moore, who was Pate's
prisoner, have recorded their recollections of the conflict.

In his letter to his family John Brown thus outlines the
skirmish :

"As I was much older than Captain Shore, the principal direction
of the fight devolved on me. We got to within about a mile of their
camp before being discovered by their scouts, and then moved at
a brisk pace. Captain Shore and men forming our left, and my com-
pany the right. When within about sixty rods of the enemy. Cap-
tain Shore's men halted by mistake in a very exposed situation,
and continued the fire, both his men and the enemy being armed
with Sharpe's rifles. My company had no long-shooters. We (my
company) did not fire a gun until we gained the rear of a bank,
about fifteen or twenty rods to the right of the enemy, where we
commenced, and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine. Cap-
tain Shore, after getting one man wounded, and exhausting his
ammunition, came with part of his men to the right of my posi-
tion, much discouraged. The balance of his men, including the
one wounded, had left the ground. Five of Captain Shore's men
came boldly down and joined my company, and all but one man,
wounded, helped to maintain the fight until it was over. I was
obliged to give my consent that he should go after more help, when
all his men left but eight, four of whom I persuaded to remain in
a secure position, and there busied one of them in shooting the

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 203

horses and mules of the enemy, which served for a show of fight.
After the firing had continued for some two or three hours, Cap-
tain Pate with twenty-three men, two badly wounded, laid down
their arms to nine men, myself included, — four of Captain Shore's
men and four of my own. One of my men (Henry Thompson) was
badly wounded, and after continuing his fire for an hour longer was
obliged to quit the ground. Three others of my company (but not
of my family) had gone off. Salmon was dreadfully wounded by
accident, soon after the fight; but both he and Henry are fast recov-
ering." ^^

Captain Pate always alleged that he had been taken pris-
oner by John Brown by trickery and treachery, when under
a flag of truce, "a barbarity unlooked for in this country,
and unheard of in the annals of honorable warfare." But
Pate admits on the same page that his object in using the
flag of truce was " to gain time, and if possible have hostilities
suspended for a while."

"With this view," he says, "a flag of truce was sent out and an
interview with the captain requested. Captain Brown advanced and
sent for me. I approached him and made known the fact that I
was acting under the orders of the U. S. Marshal and was only in
search of persons for whom writs of arrest had been issued, and
that I wished to make a proposition. He replied that he would hear
no proposals, and that he wanted an unconditional surrender. I
asked for fifteen minutes to answer. He refused. . . . Had I known
whom I was fighting I would not have trusted to a flag of truce.
The enemy's men were then marched up to within fifty paces of
mine and I placed before them. Captain Brown commanded me to
order my company to lay down their arms. Putting a revolver to
my breast he repeated the command, giving me one or two minutes
to make the order. He might have shot me; his men might have
riddled me, but I would not have given the order for a world, much
less my poor life." "

His company, he explains, saved his life by voluntarily
laying down their arms. There is more braggadocio, and
also the admission that "there is another consolation for me,
if I showed the white feather at Black Jack, namely: they
who fight and run away shall live to fight another day," —
which was surely a correct prophecy. But he admits that at
Black Jack he resorted to the flag of truce because he saw —
what no one else did — that "reinforcements for the Aboli-

,204 JOHN BROWN

tionists were near and that the fight would be desperate, and
if they persisted not one would be left to tell the tale of car-
nage that must follow."

To Pate's allegations John Brown replied thus in the Trib-
une of July II, 1856:

Lawrence, K. T., Tuesday, July i, 1856.
I have just read in the Tribune of June 13, an article from the pen
of Capt. H. C. Pate, headed "The Battle of Black Jack Point,"
(in other words the battle of Palmyra) , and take the liberty of cor-
recting a very few of Capt. Pate's statements in reference to that
affair, having had personal cognizance of what then occurred. The
first statement I would notice is in these words: "At first the enemy
squatted down in open prairie and fired at a distance from 300 to
400 yards from us. Their lines were soon broken and they hastily
ran to a ravine for shelter." This is wrong, as my company formed
a distinct line from Capt. Shore and his men, and without stopping
to fire a gun passed at once into a ravine on the enemy's right,
where we commenced our fire on them, and where we remained till .
the enemy hoisted the white flag. I expected Capt. Shore to form
his men and occupy a similar position on the left of the enemy, but
was disappointed, he halting on the eastern slope above the ravine,
in front of the enemy's camp. This I consider as the principal mis-
take in our part of the action, as Capt. Shore was unable to retain
this unfortunate position: and when he, with part of his men left
it and joined my company, the balance of his company quit the field
entirely. One of them was wounded and disabled. Capt. Shore
and all his men, I believe, had for a considerable time kept that
position, and received the fire of the enemy like the best regular
troops (to their praise I would say it) and until they had to a con-
siderable extent exhausted their ammunition. Capt. Pate says:
"When the fight commenced our forces were nearly equal." I here
say most distinctly, that twenty-six officers and men all told, was
the entire force on the Free State side who were on the ground at
all during the fight or in any way whatever participated in it. Of
these Capt. Shore and his company numbered sixteen all told. My
company, ten only, including myself. Six of these were of my own
family. He says further, "but I saw reenforcements for the Aboli-
tionists were near," &c. Capt. Pate, it seems, could see much better
than we; for we neither saw nor received any possible reenforce-
ments until some minutes after the surrender, nor did we under-
stand that any help was near us, and at the time of the surrender
our entire force, officers and men, all told, had dwindled down to
but fifteen men, who were either on or about the field. Capt. Shore
and his men had all left the field but eight. One of his men who had
left was wounded and was obliged to leave. Of the eight who re-
mained four, whose names I love to repeat, stood nobly by four of

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 205

my men until the fight was over. The other four had, with two of
my company, become disheartened and gone to a point out of reach
of the enemy's fire, where, by the utmost exertion, I had kept them
to make a little show, and busied one of them in shooting mules
and horses to divert the others and keep them from running off.
One of my men had been terribly wounded and left, after holding
on for an hour afterward. Fifteen Free State men, all told, were all
that remained on and near the ground at the time the surrender
was made ; and it was made to nine men only, myself included in
that number. Twenty-five of the enemy, including two men terribly
wounded, were made prisoners. Capt. Pate reproaches me with
the most dishonorable violation of the rights secured under a flag
of truce, but says: "My object was to gain time, and if possible have
hostilities suspended for a while." So much, in his own language,
for good faith, of which he found me so destitute. Now for my own
dishonorable violation of the flag of truce: When I first saw it I had
just been to the six discouraged men above named, and started at
once to meet it, being at that moment from sixty to eighty rods
from the enemy's camp, and met it about half way carried by two
men, one a Free State man, a prisoner of theirs; the other was young
Turner, of whom Capt. Pate speaks in such high terms. I think
him as brave as Capt. Pate represents. Of his disposition and char-
acter in other respects I say nothing now. The country and the
world may probably know more hereafter. I at once learned from
those bearing the flag of truce that in reality they had no other
design than to divert me and consume time by getting me to go to
their camp to hear explanations. I then told young James to stand
by me with his arms, saying, "We are both equally exposed to the
fire of both parties," and sent their prisoner back to tell the Cap-
tain that, if he had any proposal to make, to come at once and make
it. He also came armed to where I and young James were — some
forty or fifty rods from either party and I alone. He immediately
began to tell about his authority from the General Government, by
way of explanation, as he said. I replied that I should listen to no-
thing of that kind, and that, if he had any proposal to make, I would
hear it at once, and that, if he had none for me, I had one for him,
and that was immediate and unconditional surrender. I then said
to him and young James, (both well armed,) "You must go down
to your camp, and there all of you lay down your arms," when the
three started, they continuing armed until the full surrender was
made. I, an old man, of nearly sixty years, and fully exposed to the
weapons of two young men at my side, as well as the fire of their
men in their camp, so far, and no further ,_ took them prisoners
under their flag of truce. On our way to their camp, as we passed
within hailing distance of the eight men, who had kept their posi-
tion firm, I directed them to pass down the ravine in front of the
enemy's camp, about twenty rods off, to receive the surrender. Such
was my violation of the flag of truce. Let others judge. I had not

206 JOHN BROWN

during the time of the above transactions with Capt. Pate and his
flag of truce a single man secreted near me who could have possibly
have pointed a rifle at Capt. Pate, nor a man nearer than forty rods
till we came near their camp. Capt. Pate complains of our treat-
ment in regard to cooking, &c, but forgets to say that, after the fight
was over, when I and some of my men had eaten only once in nearly
forty-eight hours, we first of all gave Capt. Pate and his men as
good a dinner as we could obtain for them, I being the last man to
take a morsel. During the time we kept them it was with difficulty
I could keep enough men in camp away from their business and
their families to guard our prisoners ; I being myself obliged to stand
guard six hours — between four in the afternoon and six in the
morning. We were so poorly supplied with provisions that the best
we could possibly do was to let our prisoners use their own provi-
sions; and as for tents, we, for the most part, had none, while we
sent a team and brought in theirs, which they occupied exclusively.
Capt. Pate and his men had burned or carried off my own tent,
where one of my sons lived, with all its contents, provisions &c,
some four or five days before the fight. We did not search our pris-
oners, nor take from them one cent of their money, a watch, or any-
thing but arms, horses, and military stores. I would ask Capt. Pate
and his men how our people fared at their hands at Lawrence,
Osawattamie, Brown's Station, and elsewhere, my two sons, John,
jr., and Jason Brown, being of the number? We never had, at any
time, near Capt. Pate, or where his men were, to exceed half the
number he states. We had only three men wounded in the fight,
and all of those have nearly recovered, and not one killed or since
dead. See his statement. I am sorry that a young man of good ac-
quirements and fair abilities should, by his own statement, know-
ingly and wilfully made, do himself much greater injury than he
even accuses "Old Brown" of doing him. He is most welcome to
all the satisfaction which his treatment of myself and family before
the fight, his polite and gentlemanly return for my own treatment
of himself and his men have called forth since he was a prisoner,
and released by Col. Sumner, can possibly afford to his honorable
and ingenuous mind. I have also seen a brief notice of this affair
by Lieutenant Brockett, and it affords me real satisfaction to say
that I do not see a single sentence in it that is in the least degree
characterized by either direct or indirect untruthfulness. I will
add that when Capt. Pate's sword and pistols were taken from him
at his camp, he particularly requested me to take them into my own
care, which I did, and returned them to him when Col. Sumner took
him and his men from us. I subjoin a copy of an agreement made
with Capt. Shore and myself by Capt. Pate and his Lieutenant
Brocket, in regard to exchange of prisoners taken by both parties,
which agreement Col. Sumner did not require the Pro-Slavery
party to comply with. A good illustration of governmental pro-
tection to the people of Kansas from the first:

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 207

(Copy)

This is an article of agreement between Captains John Brown,
sen., and Samuel T. Shore of the first part, and Capt. H. C. Pate
and Lieut. W. B. Brocket of the second part, and witnesses, that
in consideration of the fact that the parties of the first part have
a number of Capt. Pate's company prisoners that they agree to
give up and fully liberate one of their prisoners for one of those
lately arrested near Stanton, Osawattamie, and Potawatamie and
so on, one of*the former for one of the latter alternately until
all are liberated. It is understood and agreed by the parties that
the sons of Capt. John Brown, sen, Capt. John Brown, jr., and
Jason Brown, are to be among the lilDerated parties (if not already
liberated), and are to be exchanged for Capt. Pate and Lieut.
Brocket respectively. The prisoners are to be brought on neutral
ground and exchanged. It is agreed that the neutral ground shall
be at or near the house of John T. or Ottawa Jones of this Terri-
tory, and that those who have been arrested, and have been liber-
ated, will be considered in the same light as those not liberated,
but they must appear in person or answer in writing that they
are at liberty. The arms, particularly the side arms, of each one
exchanged, are to be returned with the prisoners, also the horses
so far as practicable.

(Signed)

John Brown,
S. T. Shore,
H. C. Pate,
W. B. Brocket.
Prairie City, Kansas Ter'y. June 2, a. d., 1856.

Captain Pate, after his interview with Brown in jail at
Charlestown, to which he had three witnesses, obtained their
signatures to an account of the Black Jack fight which in some
respects is obviously erroneous ; in it he endeavors to repre-
sent that John Brown admitted that the flag of truce was vio-
lated. Unfortunately for Pate's reputation as a chronicler, his
pamphlet is frankly partisan. Moreover, there were several
witnesses who testified that Pate ordered his men to lay down
their arms, instead of risking death by silence, as he avers.

The crux of the " battle" of Black Jack came when John
Brown ordered Shore's men to shoot Pate's horses and mules.
As soon as he noticed this going on, Frederick Brown, who had
been left behind with the horses, could no longer contain him-
self in inactivity, but, mounting one of the animals and bran-
dishing his sword, rode around Pate's camp with his horse at

208 JOHN BROWN

a run, crying out, " Father, we have got them surrounded and
have cut off their communications!" Frederick,Brown was a
large man, and on this occasion he acte3rin such a wild manner
as to give rise to the charge that he was not of sound mind.
His extraordinary appearance undoubtedly frightened Pate's
men, who naturally believed that he had other men behind
him and that they were really surrounded. They fired a num-
ber of shots at him in vain, and it was only a fewtainutes after
this that they raised the flag of truce and the firing ceased. It
is interesting to note that among those who ran away with
Shore's men was James Townsley, the first to tell the story of
the Pottawatomie murders. Pate's Free Soil prisoners were of
course at once released by John Brown, after having been
under fire throughout the engagement, which ended between
one and two o'clock. Among them, besides the preacher Moore,
was a Dr. Graham, who had been shot through the leg in en-
deavoring to escape. He was not sufficiently hurt, however, to
prevent his attending to the wounded, of whom Henry Thomp-
son was the most seriously injured. After the battle, Shore's
men returned, and with them the company known as the Law-
rence "Stubbs," under Captain J. B. Abbott, a well-known
Lawrence fighter, who had marched as rapidly as possible in
order to succor Brown. Owen Brown estimates that this rein-
forcement amounted to one hundred and fifty men, and in this
he is probably not far wrong. As John Brown himself put it:

"After the fight, numerous Free State men who could not be got
out before were on hand ; and some of them I am ashamed to add,
were very busy not only with the plunder of our enemies, but with
our private effects, leaving us, while guarding our prisoners and
providing in regard to them, much poorer than before the battle.""

"We were taken," records Pate, "to a camp on Middle Ot-
tawa Creek and closely guarded. We had to cook for ourselves,
furnish provisions, and sleep on the ground, but we were not
treated unkindly. Here we remained for three days and nights,
until Colonel Sumner at the head of a company of Dragoons
released us from our imprisonment." ^^

Colonel Sumner officially reported from Leavenworth, on
June 5, his rescue of Pate's command, and his heading off
about two hundred and fifty men under General Whitfield

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 209

and General Coffee, of the militia, who, as we have already
seen from Whitfield's letter, were bent on rescuing Captain
Pate. Colonel Sumner's force was only fifty men. With him
were Major Sedgwick and Lieutenant Stuart, who thus met
Pate and Brown. Colonel Sumner records the prompt dispersal
of Brown's men, and his surprise at finding General Whit-
field, a Member of Congress, and General Coffee, of the MiHtia,
at the head of the advancing Border Ruffians. He informed
them that he was there,

"by order of the President, and the proclamation of the Governor,
to disperse all armed bodies assembled without authority; and fur-
ther, that my duty was perfectly plain, and would certainly be done.
I then requested General Coffee to assemble his people, and I read
to them the President's despatch and the governor's proclamation.
The general then said that he should not resist the authority of the
general government, and that his party would disperse, and shortly
afterwards they moved off. Whether this is a final dispersion of these
lawless armed bodies, is very doubtful. If the proclamation of the
Governor had been issued six months earlier, and had been rightly
maintained, these difficulties would have been avoided. As the mat-
ter now stands, there is great danger of a serious commotion."^"

Major Sedgwick recorded the dispersal of Brown's band in
the following words:

"Things are getting worse everyday, and it is hard to foresee the
result. One of these things must happen: either it will terminate
in civil war or the vicious will band themselves together to plunder
and murder all whom they meet. The day after writing my last
letter I started with a squadron of cavalry to go about forty miles
to break up an encampment of free-soilers who had been robbing
and taking prisoners any pro-slavery man they could meet. I pro-
ceeded to the place, and when within a short distance two of their
principal men came out and wanted to make terms. They were told
that no terms would be made with lawless and armed men, but
that they must give up their prisoners and disperse at once. We
marched into their camp, situated on a small island and entrenched,
and found about one hundred and fifty men and twenty prisoners,
who were released and the men dispersed.""

It was John Brown himself who came out and endeav-
ored to negotiate with the forces of the United States as if
he were in control of a coordinate body. It was he, too, who
had insisted on the camp's being so heavily entrenched. On
June 3 he had directed the pillaging of the store of one J. M.

210 JOHN BROWN

Bernard at Centropolis, he being a pro-slavery sympathizer, in
order, Brown's devoted follower Bondi declared:

"to improve our exterior, the Brown outfit being altogether in rags.
Frederick and Oliver Brown and three members of the Stubbs were
the raiding party. They returned with some palm-leaf hats, check
shirts, linen coats, a few linen pants, and bandanna handkerchiefs. ' ' '"'

To the victors belonged the spoils. Since it was now "war"
in deadly earnest, the raiding of the country for supplies was,
in John Brown's opinion, wholly justified, as had already been
the "impressing" of pro-slavery horses. Within one hour sub-
sequent to the interview between Sumner and Brown, re-
ported Bondi, Camp Brown had ceased to exist, and this hasty
movement was not delayed by Salmon Brown's accidentally
shooting himself in the right shoulder. Subsequently, Colonel
Sumner was severely criticised by the pro-slavery men for not
having arrested Brown. He had, however, no warrants for
anybody's arrest, and there was with his command a deputy
United States marshal, William J. Preston by name. The lat-
ter seems to have been afraid, even in the presence of troops,
to serve the warrants he had with him.^' Salmon Brown
and Henry Thompson testify that Colonel Sumner told John
Brown that Preston had warrants and that they would be
served in his presence. Then he ordered Preston to proceed.
" I do not recognize any one for whom I have warrants," re-
plied the deputy marshal. "Then what are you here for?"
asked Colonel Sumner indignantly.'"

The Brown family did not move far after being ordered
to disperse. The wounded Salmon was taken to Carpenter's
near-by cabin and nursed by Bondi ; the others, with Weiner,
camped in a thicket about half a mile from the abandoned
Camp Brown. On June 8 Bondi rejoined them, Salmon being
no longer in need of his services, and was at once asked to visit
John Brown, Jr., and Jason Brown, then prisoners in Captain
Wood's near-by camp. At their request Bondi visited the
Adairs and found the Brown women safe at the residence of
David Garrison, a neighbor. On Thursday, June lo, Bondi
had returned to John Brown, and at a council held that day
i't was agreed to separate. Weiner had business in Louisiana;
Henry Thompson was also taken to Carpenter's cabin, and

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 211

Bondi accompanied Weiner as far as Leavenworth on the lat-
ter's way to St. Louis. He then returned to the seat of war.
John Brown and his unwounded sons remained hidden in the
thickets.

Governor Shannon, on hearing of the Black Jack episode,
reported it to President Pierce as a sign of the unrest of the Ter-
ritory, with a comment that could hardly have gratified Cap-
tain Pate, for it charged him with being " at the head of an un-
authorized company." ^i This weak Governor was not having
a particularly easy time of it. The Territory was seething with
lawlessness. The administration at Washington was getting
restless in view of the outburst of anger in the North over the
sacking of Lawrence. Indeed, on May 23, before the news of
this raid had reached Washington, President Pierce sent two
despatches '^ to Governor Shannon which betray his extreme
nervousness. He wished to know if it was true that Marshal
Donaldson was near Lawrence, if it had been necessary to
use troops to enforce writs, and, if so, whether other forces
besides those of Sumner and Lieut.-Col. Cooke, of the Dra-
goons, had been called in. In his second despatch he urged
Governor Shannon to "repress lawless violence in whatever
form it may manifest itself," and it was this despatch which
Colonel Sumner read to General Whitfield, together with Shan-
non's proclamation commanding "all persons belonging to
military organizations within this Territory, not authorized
by the laws thereof, to disperse and retire peaceably to their
respective abodes," under penalty of being dispersed by the
United States troops. Shannon further ordered '' that all law-
abiding citizens, without regard to party names and distinc-
tions, should be protected in their persons and property, and
that "all aggressing parties from without the Territory must
be repelled." It is only fair to Shannon to add that he made
requisitions for sufficient United States troops, and urged upon
their commanders that the country to the south of Lawrence
be properly protected. When Shannon's proclamation was
two days old, President Pierce again telegraphed to the Gov-
ernor : ' ' Maintain the laws firmly and impartially, and take care
that no good citizen has just ground to complain of the want
of protection.""

Despite these admonitions and the activity of the troops,

212 JOHN BROWN

the disorders continued. Early in the morning of the 5th of
June, Major Abbott, with his Wakarusa company of Free State
men and a body of Lawrence youths, assailed Franklin, four
and a half miles from Lawrence, where were some Missourians
charged with being members of the Law and Order party and
with having amassed considerable plunder. '^ It was, in the eyes
of the Free State men, a "mischievous camp." The pro-slavery
men, who had one man killed and several wounded, defended
themselves with a cannon, but inflicted no loss on their assail-
ants. The Wakarusa company arrived too late to take part
in the fighting, and busied itself in levying on the stores of the
pro-slavery men, loading a wagon with all the rifles, powder,
caps, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, etc., that could be found. They
made Franklin, says Andreas, "too hot for the enemy, and
compelled them to evacuate." It is interesting to note that
this and similar robberies by Free State men were treated in
the Northern press and by subsequent historians as absolutely
proper and legitimate acts of war, while similar outrages on
the part of the pro-slavery forces were pictured as too terrible to
be borne. Thus Bondi relates that the final pro-slavery wrong-
doing, which led John Brown to leave his camp and march after
Pate, was the entering of a Free State house by three of Pate's
men and their stealing the guns of the seven Free Soilers who
occupiedit. "It was impossible," says Bondi, "toputupwith
such a shameful outrage," '^ — especially so for the men who
bore the guilt of the Pottawatomie murders. Later on in his
reminiscences, Bondi relates with great gusto how he and his
companions, when in need of fresh meat, sought out "Dutch
Henry" Sherman's herd of cattle and killed what they needed
without asking any one's permission. This was, of course, a
justifiable act of war, in his opinion. The dispersal of Free
State forces by Federal troops was always an outrage ; similar
treatment of the pro-slavery bands, just and proper.

Two days after the Free State attack on Franklin, Whit-
field's men, returning to Missouri, reached Osawatomie just
after Major Sedgwick, with a company of dragoons, had left
it on his return to Fort Leavenworth. They seized the oppor-
tunity to take revenge for the Pottawatomie murders. Every
house was entered and pillaged, women being robbed even
of earrings, and fourteen horses were stolen," thus justifying

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 213

Colonel Sumner's fears as to the genuineness of Whitfield's
promise to disperse his men. That anything was left standing
was due to fear that United States troops might appear. After
an hour and a half of terrorizing women and children and the
few men left at home, Whitfield's forces moved on, laden with
booty, and finally disbanded on reaching Westport. As this
town lies to the northeast of Prairie City, and Osawatomie far
to the southeast, it is obvious that Whitfield deliberately dis-
obeyed Sumner's instructions to leave the Territory, and went
out of his way to revenge upon the Free State settlement at
Osawatomie the Pottawatomie murders that were the original
reason for his and Pate's entry into Kansas. Sumner was nat-
urally indignant, so the Tribune reported on June 23, when
he heard of Whitfield's breach of faith; but the mischief was
then done, and Whitfield doubled on his tracks and returned
safely to Westport. This Whitfield raid, while unaccompa-
nied by loss of life, by itself wholly disposes of the conten-
tion of James Freeman Clarke and others that after John
Brown's murders "the country had peace." Certainly it is
plain proof that the killings of the Doyles, Sherman and Wil-
kinson, far from stopping the aggressiveness of the Border
Ruffians, brought down their especial vengeance upon Brown's
Free State neighbors.

Even before they plundered Osawatomie, Whitfield's men
were credited with one of the worst crimes of this bloody
period. They had tried one Cantrall, a Missourian, on the
charge of "treason to Missouri," for sympathizing with and
aiding the Free State forces at Black Jack, although he was not
an actual participant in the engagement. After a mock court-
martial, Cantrall was taken into a near-by ravine. Other pris-
oners of Whitfield reported afterwards that there was a "shot,
followed by the cry, 'O God! I am shot! I am murdered.'
Then there was another shot followed by a long scream ; then
another shot and all was silent." One of the prisoners escaped
and told this story, and the body was found in the ravine with
three bullet-holes in the breast.^^ Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George
Cooke, commanding the Second Dragoons, the other Federal
regiment in Kansas, reported officially on June 18 that "the
disorders in the Territory have, in fact, changedtheir charac-
ter, and consist now of robberies and assassinations, by a set

214 JOHN BROWN

of bandits whom the excitement of the times has attracted
hither."'^ W. A. Phillips, one of the best of the contempo-
rary chroniclers, wrote that during the period between the
Pottawatomie murders and June i8,

"proslavery parties stealthily prowled through the territory or
hung upon the Missouri borders. Outrages were so common that
it would be impossible to enumerate them. Murders were frequent,
many of them passing secretly and unrecorded ; some of them only
revealed by the discovery of some mouldering remains of mortality.
Two men, found hanging on a tree near Westport, ill-fated free-
state settlers, were taken down and buried by the troops; but so
shallow was the grave that the prairie wolves dug them up and
partly devoured them, before they were again found and buried.""

Lieutenant James Mcintosh, First Cavalry, reported on
June 13, from Palmyra, that a great many robberies were being
committed on the various roads, and one detachment of his
men reported to him that at Cedar Creek, twenty-five miles
away,

"several men were lying murdered. They saw the body of one who
they knew from his dress to be a Mr. Carter, who was taken pris-
oner from this place a few nights ago. This body was shown to them
by a member of one of the companies who was under the influence
of liquor, and who told my men that he could point out the other
abolitionists if they wished to see them." "

O. C. Brown, the founder of Osawatomie, wrote on June
24, 1856, that for thirty days (since Pottawatomie) there had
been a "reign of terror."

"Hundreds of men," he declared, "have come from Missouri, and
the Southern and pauper crowd that live by plunder are hunting
down the supposed murderers at Pottawatomie. But almost daily
murders are committed near Westport and nothing done." He
added : "Keep us in flour and bacon and we can stand it a good pull
longer. . . . Remember that now, now, now, is the time to render
us aid.""'

There is other contemporary testimony to the straits to
which John Brown's act reduced Osawatomie.

Free Soilers in numbers were stopped and turned out of
the Territory when caught near the border. One John A.
Baillie was shot and badly injured, besides being robbed of
his possessions." A young man named Hill was similarly

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 215

robbed, and then bound and barbarously gagged." Another
victim of Border Ruffian fury was strung up to a tree only
to be let down again. The list of murders runs all through
the summer. A young Free Soil Kentuckian named Hopkins
was deliberately killed in Lawrence on June 16 by a deputy
sheriff named Haine, or Haynau, a notorious bully." William
Gay, an Indian Agent, was murdered two miles from West-
port, on June 21, by three strangers, who blazed away at him
as soon as they discovered, after drinking with him, that he
was from Michigan. ^^ Laben Parker was shot, stabbed and
hanged, his dangling body being found July 24, eleven miles
from Tecumseh, with this placard upon it: "Let all those
who are going to vote against slavery take warning \" " Major
David S. Hoyt, formerly of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was
killed August 1 1 , on his return to Lawrence from the Georgian
camp on Washington Creek, which he had entered on a mis-
sion of peace. A corrosive acid was thrown upon his face, and
his body, half-buried, was torn by wild beasts. His object
had been to ask that the Georgians join the people of Law-
rence in stopping just such crimes.**

But the worst of all this terrible list of inhuman outrages,
the one that infuriated the Free State men beyond all else,
was the killing, on August 17, of William Hoppe, a brother-
in-law of the Rev. Ephraim Nute, the Unitarian minister of
Lawrence. Hoppe was shot in his buggy, when within two
miles of Leavenworth, by a follower of General Atchison,
named Fugit or Fugert.*^ This wretch had made a bet of six
dollars to a pair of boots that he would go out and return
with the scalp of an Abolitionist within two hours. He asked
but one question of his victim. When Hoppe replied that he
was from Lawrence, Fugit shot him and scalped him, with
an Indian's dexterity, without waiting even to ascertain if
Hoppe was dead. Brandishing the bloody scalp, Fugit rode
back and received his boots. In May, 1857, he was arrested
at Leavenworth and acquitted of the charge of murder! For
downright atrocities committed on individuals, the pro-slavery
men were infinitely worse than the Free State, even remem-
bering the Pottawatomie killings.

There were, however, plenty of Free State guerrillas at
work. Charles Lenhart and John E. Cook (who later perished

2i6 JOHN BROWN

on the scaffold at Charlestown) were members of a well-
mounted body of "cavalry scouts" of about twenty young
men who ranged about the country.^" The stealing of cattle
and horses went on fearlessly on both sides. ' ' " The substance
of the Territory is devoured by the roving, roystering bands
of guerrilla fighters who, under the plea that war prevails, per-
petrate deeds of robbery, rapine, slaughter and pillage that
nothing can justify," reported the St. Louis Evening News
early in June. It added that the "body of good citizens, once
numerous in the Territory, who sided with neither party,
but attended to their own affairs, regardless of the issue of
the dispute, is not now to be found. Every man has been
compelled to join one party or the other, and to become active
in its behalf." This referred, of course, both to the Free Soil-
ers and to the non-slaveholding pro-slavery men who wished
to mind their own business. "All over the Territory," the
Evening News truthfully said, "along the roadside, houses
are deserted and farms abandoned, and nowhere are there
visible evidences of industry." ^^ The Boonsville, Missouri,
Observer was of the opinion that ' ' unless the United States
Government rigorously interposes its authority in behalf of
peace and order, the horrors of civil war will rage on, and
we fear accumulate to such an extent as to imperil the
Union. "53

The pro-slavery circular of June 21, signed by Atchison,
Buford and Stringfellow, presented the Southern view of the
situation thus:

"The [Pottawatomie] outrages above specified were preceded,
and up to the present time have been followed by others of a like
character, and dictated by a like settled policy on the part of our
enemies to harrass and frighten by their deeds of horror, our friends
from their homes in the Territory. Undoubtedly this policy (a well
settled party system) has dictated the notices lately given in all
the disturbed districts, by armed marauding bands of abolition-
ists, to the law and order men of their respective neighborhoods,
immediately to leave the country on peril of death. Under such
notices, our friends about Hickory Point and on Pottowatomie and
Rock Creeks, have all been driven out of the Territory, their stores
have been robbed, their cattle driven off, their houses burned, their
horses stolen, and in some cases they have been assassinated for
daring to return. Some, too, of these outrages, have been perpe-
trated under the very nose of the United States troops, who all the

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 217

while assure us that all is peace and quietness, and that they will
afford ample protection, without the necessity of our banding to-
gether in armed bodies for mutual defence." ^*

This pro-slavery criticism of the United States troops is the
more interesting because the Free Soil writers of the period
also assail the regulars and accuse them of sympathizing
with and abetting Border Ruffian outrages, while admitting
that Colonel Sumner's and Major Sedgwick's leanings were
toward the North. The latter fact probably had something
to do with Colonel Sumner's going on leave on July 15, in the
midst of the troubles, and his turning over the command to
Brigadier-General Persifor F. Smith, who did not, however,
take the field in person. Colonel Sumner's disrepute with the
pro-slavery Pierce administration is very plain. In his annual
report for 1856, Jefferson Davis pointedly praised Lieut.-
Col. Cooke and avoided all mention of Colonel Sumner,
beyond printing his (Davis's) censures of Colonel Sumner for
having dispersed by force the Topeka Free State Legislature,
in harmony with the proclamation of acting Governor Wood-
son," and positive instructions from Governor Shannon to
use force if necessary. ^^ Colonel Sumner did not again fig-
ure prominently in the Kansas troubles. If Pierce desired a
scapegoat for the Kansas lawlessness. Colonel Sumner was
the natural victim. It must be pointed out, however, that
Colonel Sumner's and Lieut.-Col. Cooke's regiments would
not have been large enough to patrol successfully all of east-
ern Kansas, had they been of full strength. General Smith
reported officially on August 22, that "Colonel Sumner's
regiment cannot now muster four hundred men, including
Captain Stewart's company, on its way to Fort Laramie, and
a detachment under Lieutenant Wharton, en route for Fort
Kearney with the Sioux prisoners. Lieut.-Col. Cooke's six
companies have a little more than one hundred horses." "

The breaking up of the Topeka or Free State Legislature
Colonel Sumner declared to be the most trying episode of his
long military career. ^^ Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel
Sumner on June 23,^5 that he was compelled to leave the Ter-
ritory for ten days, and that he wished him to use his com-
mand in the most effective way for preserving peace, and to
be sure to have two companies at Topeka on July 4. Shannon

2i8 JOHN BROWN

wrote also of his belief that if the Free State Legislature as-
sembled on that date, it

"would produce an outbreak more fearful by far in its conse-
quences than any which we have heretofore witnessed. . . . Two
governments cannot exist at one and the same time in this Terri-
tory in practical operation; one or the other must be overthrown;
and the struggle between the legal government established by Con-
gress and that by the Topeka Constitution would result in a civil
war, the fearful consequences of which no one can foresee. Should
this body reassemble and enact laws (and they can have no other
object in meeting), they will be an illegal body, threatening the
peace of the whole country and therefore should be dispersed."

This view Colonel Sumner shared, for he wrote to acting
Governor Woodson on June 28, " I am decidedly of the opin-
ion that that body of men ought not to be permitted to assem-
ble. It is not too much to say that the peace of the country
depends upon it." Mr. Woodson then issued his proclama-
tion of July 4, forbidding all persons "claiming legislative
powers and authorities . . . from assembling, organizing
or attempting to organize or act in any legislative capacity
whatever. ..." To this Colonel Sumner added over his
own name these words: "The proclamation of the President
and the order under it require me to sustain the Executive
of the Territory in executing the laws and preserving the
peace. I therefore hereby announce that I shall maintain the
proclamation at all hazards."

Colonel Sumner had been so completely under the orders
of Governor Shannon that he believed himself wholly justified
in carrying out Shannon's and Woodson's instructions, the
latter being with him on July 4, and directing him by word
of mouth. Moreover, Jefferson Davis, who had praised Colo-
nel Sumner on May 23, for his zeal, had assured him in the
same letter that it was his duty to maintain "the duly au-
thorized government of the Territory," and added that "for
the great purpose which justifies the employment of military
force, it matters not whether the subversion of the law arises
from a denial of the existence of the government " or from law-
less disregard of the rights of persons or property. The Topeka
Legislature was surely in itself a "denial of the existence
of the government," but after the dispersal of the Topeka

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 219

Legislature, Secretary Davis took, on August 27, the view
that Colonel Sumner had exceeded his instructions, and disa-
vowed the dispersal of the Legislature. To this rebuke Colonel
Sumner respectfully replied that he felt bound to consider
the Topeka Legislature insurrectionary, under the President's
proclamation of February 11, and, therefore, was compelled
to suppress it, particularly because, as he pointed out, the
principal officers of the Topeka government were at that
moment actually under arrest for high treason.

But if the logic was on Colonel Sumner's side, the authority
was on Jefferson Davis's; a scapegoat was wanted, and the
veteran of thirty-seven years' service was at hand. Not un-
naturally it was believed by the Free Soil men that Colonel
Sumner's expressions of regret in disbanding the Legislature,
and his friendliness for the North, were the real reasons for
his being given leave, and for the censure passed upon him.
A year later, a new Secretary of War was glad to entrust to
Sumner the command of an important and successful cam-
paign against the Cheyenne Indians.

The actual dispersal of the Legislature was dramatic. In
the absence of the Speaker and the Chief Clerk, Samuel F.
Tappan, the Assistant Clerk, called the roll in the House of
Representatives on July 4, to which date the Legislature had
adjourned on March 4. Seventeen members answered to their
names. As Tappan knew there were others in the town, he
ordered the sergeant-at-arms to summon the rest. Colonel
Sumner then rose and said:

"Gentlemen: This is the most disagreeable duty of my whole
life. My orders are to disperse the Legislature, and I am here to
tell you that it must not meet, and to see it dispersed. God knows
I have no partisan feelings in the matter, and I will have none so
long as I hold my present position in Kansas. I have just returned
from the border, where I have been driving out bands of Missou-
rians, and now I am ordered here to disperse you. You must dis-
perse. This body cannot be permitted to meet — Disperse. Let
me again assure you that this is the most disagreeable duty of my
whole life." »"

He had taken ample military precautions, for he had con-
centrated at Topeka, on July 3. five companies of his regiment
and two pieces of artillery. The proclamation of the acting

220 JOHN BROWN

Governor was first read to the crowd of about five hundred
men, but Colonel Sumner's hope that this would suffice to pre-
vent the meeting of the Legislature was vain ; he was forced to
march his command into town, draw it up before the building
in which the Legislature was meeting, and array it in the face
of several Free State volunteer companies. These military
manoeuvres deeply impressed the crowd, for Colonel Sumner's
bearing, like that of his men, was eminently businesslike and
soldierly.

As Colonel Sumner rode away, so the Philadelphia North
American'' s correspondent reported,

"some one gave 'three cheers for Col. Sumner,' which was re-
sponded to. Then there were three hearty cheers for John C. Fre-
mont, three cheers for the Constitution and State Legislature, and
just as the dragoons got the word of command, 'march,' three
groans were given for Franklin Pierce, and the retreating squadron
of dragoons moved off amid the deep groaning for the President."

During all these exciting Topeka happenings, John Brown
was not far away. He had remained in hiding on Ottawa
Creek, near Palmyra, throughout June, awaiting the recovery
of his sick and wounded sons, and gradually recruiting his
band." Henry Thompson, in addition to his wound, suffered
from bilious fever, and Owen Brown was also a fever victim.
The invalid's chief nurse was Lucius Mills, a cousin, and John
Brown looked in upon them from time to time, and aided when
the country was clear of Border Ruffians and troops. Food
they gathered where possible, the Carpenters, Ottawa Jones
and other neighbors helping. Not until the beginning of July
did John Brown terminate this life in the bush and again
become active. On July 2 he boldly entered Lawrence and
called upon the Tribune's correspondent, William A. Phil-
lips. To him Brown stated that he was on his way to Topeka
with his followers, to be on hand at whatever crisis might
arise at the opening of the Legislature. "He was not in the
habit," Colonel Phillips records, "of subjecting himself to the
orders of anybody. He intended to aid the general result, but
to do it in his own way." That evening Phillips started with
John Brown's company, toward Topeka. They camped in the
open, a mile southwest of Big Springs. At two o'clock A. M.

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 221

on the 3d, they resumed the march, straight across country,
regardless of streams and rough going. At sunrise they reached
the Shunga-nung, heard Colonel Sumner's camp bugles, and
John Brown halted in the timber by the creek, one of the men
going with Phillips into town to bring back word when the
company should be needed. "He [Brown] sent messages to
one or two of the gentlemen in town, and, as he wrung my
hand at parting, urged that we should have the Legislature
meet and resist all who should interfere with it, and fight, if
necessary, even the United States troops."

Colonel PhilHps has left, in the Atlantic Monthly for De-
cember, 1879, a charming picture of that night ride and the
conversation he had with Brown as they lay "bivouacking in
the open beneath the stars:"

"He seemed to be as little disposed to sleep as I was, and we
talked; or rather he did, for I said little. I found that he was a
thorough astronomer; he pointed out the different constellations
and their movements. ' Now,' he said, ' it is midnight,' as he pointed
to the finger marks of his great clock in the sky. The whispering of
the wind on the prairie was full of voices to him, and the stars as
they shone in the firmament of God seemed to inspire him. ' How
admirable is the symmetry of the heavens ; how grand and beau-
tiful! Everything moves in sublime harmony in the government
of God. Not so with us poor creatures. If one star is more brilliant
than others, it is continually shooting in some erratic way into
space.'

"He criticized both parties in Kansas. Of the proslavery men
he said that slavery besotted everything, and made men more brutal
and coarse ; nor did the Free-State men escape his sharp censure.
He said that we had many noble and true men, but too many
broken-down politicians from the older States, who would rather
pass resolutions than act, and who criticized all who did real work.
A professional politician, he went on, you never could trust; for
even if he had convictions, he was always ready to sacrifice his
principles for his advantage. One of the most interesting things
in his conversation that night, and one that marked him as a theo-
rist, was his treatment of our forms of social and political life. He
thought society ought to be organized on a less selfish basis; for
while material interests gained something by the deification of pure
selfishness, men and women lost much by it. He said that all great
reforms, like the Christian religion, were based on broad generous,
self-sacrificing principles. He condemned the sale of land as a chat-
tel and thought that there was an infinite number of wrongs to right
before society would be what it should be, but that in our country

222 JOHN BROWN

slavery was the 'sum of all villainies,' and its abolition the first
essential work. If the American people did not take courage and
end it speedily, human freedom and republican liberty would soon
be empty names in these United States."

How long John Brown remained at the Willets farm near
Topeka, to which he now proceeded, and where he spent the
next two or three weeks, is not known. He neither entered
Topeka on the fateful July 4, nor immediately thereafter. It
is probable that he returned promptly to the neighborhood of
his sick sons, more than ever disgusted with Free State leaders
and their inability to adopt his view that the way to fight was
to "press to close quarters. "^^ On July 26, John Brown, Jr.,
wrote from his Leavenworth prison to his father :

"Am very glad that you have started as all things considered I
am convinced you can be of more use where you contemplate going
than here. My anxiety for your safe journey is very great. Hope
that I shall yet see you all again. Where I shall go, if I get through
this is more than I can tell, of one thing I feel sure now, and that
is that I shall leave Kansas. I must get away from exciting scenes
to some secluded region, or my life will be a failure. . . . The treat-
ment I have received from the Free State party has wearied me of
any further desire to cooperate with them. They, as a party, are
guided by no principle but selfishness, and are withal most arrant
cowards — they deserve their fate. . . .""'

Four days later, John Brown, Jr., wrote to Jason Brown
that his father and his party were at Topeka ' ' a few days ago
on their way to the States. They were supplied at Topeka with
provisions for the trip and by this time I hope they have passed
without the limits of the Territory."" The party comprised
Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon Brown, and their father,
Henry Thompson, and Lucius Mills, for whom John Brown
had little regard because he had no desire to fight and was con-
tent to play the nurse and doctor. Salmon Brown states that
they left because Lucius Mills insisted on the invalids' being
moved, and because they were a drag on the fighting men. In
their hot, primitive quarters, in which the flies were a scourge,
Owen had been reduced "almost to a skeleton," and Henry
Thompson was not much better off, while Salmon himself was
still a cripple. Henry Thompson affirms that he, Oliver, Owen
and Salmon had had enough of Kansas. They did not wish to

CLOSE QUARTERS AT BLACK JACK 223

fight any more. They felt that they had suffered enough, that
the service they had been called upon to perform at Potta-
watomie squared them with Duty. They were, they thought,
entitled to leave further work to other hands. They were sick
of fighting and trouble. The burden of Pottawatomie did not,
however, weigh upon Salmon ; it was as an invalided soldier
that he consented to leave. Jason Brown stayed at Osawatomie
with his wife. John Brown himself never expressed an opinion
as to his sons' resolution or their leaving Kansas.

A heretofore unrelated incident of this journey is now set
forth by Salmon Brown. Oliver Brown, a great, stout, strap-
ping fellow, was forbidden by his father to give to Lucius Mills
a fine revolver. Says Salmon Brown:

"Oliver wanted to make him a present of a revolver that he [Oli-
ver] had captured at Black Jack. Father objected; forbade Oliver
to give Mills the pistol, saying that Mills would never use it. Oliver
persisting. Father set out to take the pistol away from him by force.
In the scuffle that ensued, I, alarmed lest the weapon might be
accidentally discharged, took it out of Oliver's belt, saying: 'Now
you fellows fight it out!' It looked /oo^w/s, to me. The pistol was
Oliver's pistol. And the match was not an equal one. Father had
been a strong man in his day, but his prime was past. Oliver was
a splendid wrestler. Up in North Elba, he had thrown thirty lum-
bermen one day, one after the other, in a big 'wrastle.' Father was
like a child in his hands. And Oliver was determined. He grabbed
Father by the arms and jammed him against the wagon. 'Let go
of me!' said Father. 'Not till you agree to behave yourself,' said
OUver. And Father had to let him have his way."°^

On August 3 and 4, John Brown and those with him were
overtaken by a party of Free State men who were marching
north to the Nebraska line, to meet James H. Lane's Free
State caravan and to protect it from the merciless Kickapoo
Rangers, the murderers of Captain R. P. Brown. One of these
volunteer guards, Samuel J. Reader, still a resident of Kansas,
has transcribed from his journal the following impressions of
his meeting with John Brown : ««

"Between three and four o'clock we formed in marching column,
and started forward at a swinging pace. We were all well rested,
and a little tired of staying in camp. We had been on the road
perhaps an hour or more when someone in front shouted, 'There
he is!' Sure enough, it was Brown. Just ahead of us we saw the

224 JOHN BROWN

dingy old wagon-cover, and the two men, and the oxen, plodding
slowly onward. Our step was increased to 'quick time;' and as we
passed the old man, on either side of the road, we rent the air with
cheers. If John Brown ever delighted in the praises of men, his
pleasure must have been gratified, as he walked along, enveloped
in our shouting column. But I fear he looked upon such things as
vainglorious, for if he responded by word or act, I failed to hear
it or see it. In passing I looked at him closely. He was rather tall,
and lean, with a tanned, weather-beaten aspect in general. He
looked like a rough, hard-working old farmer; and I had known sev-
eral such who pretty closely resembled Brown in many respects.
He appeared to be unarmed ; but very likely had shooting irons
inside the wagon. His face was shaven, and he wore a cotton shirt,
partly covered by a vest. His hat was well worn, and his general
appearance, dilapidated, dusty and soiled. He turned from his ox
team and glanced at our party from time to time as we were pass-
ing him. No doubt it was a pleasing sight to him to see men in
armed opposition to the Slave Power."

Mr. Reader, on this expedition, on August 7, was an eye-
witness of the first meeting between John Brown and a
remarkable man who subsequently became one of Brown's
most trusted lieutenants, Aaron Dwight Stevens, who at that
time went by the name of Captain Whipple, for the good rea-
son that he had escaped from the military prison at Fort
Leavenworth while serving a three years' sentence for taking
part in a soldiers' mutiny at Don Fernandez de Taos, New
Mexico, and resisting the authority of an officer of his regi-
ment. Major G. A. H. Blake, of the First Dragoons."*

John Brown himself did not set foot in Iowa, but turned
back at Nebraska City, on the Nebraska boundary, his invalids
then being quite safe.*^ "Frederick turned and went back
with his father," Henry Thompson testifies. "Frederick felt
that Pottawatomie bound him to Kansas. He did not wish
to leave. He felt that a great crime had been committed, and
that he should go back into Kansas and live it out." It was
a decision that cost him his life.

* A myth that this officer was Captain James Longstreet, later the famous
Confederate Lieutenant-General, persists in lives of Brown and sketches of A. D.
Stevens. Captain Longstreet, at the time of Stevens's trial, was on duty with his
regiment, the Eighth Infantry, in Texas, and does not figure in the court-martial

CHAPTER VII

THE FOE IN THE FIELD

At Nebraska City, John Brown found a notable caravan.
Under the erratic James Henry Lane, there had arrivedat that
point a body of several hundred Free State emigrants, many
of whom had attempted to reach Kansas by the usual route of
the Missouri River, only to learn that the chivalric Missouri-
ans had barred that means of entrance. As early as June 20,
1856, a party of seventy-five men from Chicago, understood
to be the vanguard of the "ai-my of the North" which Lane
had been raising in Chicago and elsewhere, was forced to give
up its arms on the steamer Star of the West, at Lecompton,
Missouri, by a mob of Missourians headed by Colonel Joseph
Shelby, later a prominent Confederate brigadier. At Kansas
City, General Atchison, with another armed force, compelled
the Northerners to stay on their boat and return to Illi-
nois, an achievement about which the Border Ruffian press
boasted loudly and long. ^ Thereafter parties of Northerners,
on the steamers Sultan and Arabia and other river-craft,
were similarly driven back, some even being robbed of their
possessions.^ By the 4th of July, the blockade of the river was
complete ; thereafter the Free State reinforcements were com-
pelled to take the tedious and expensive overland trip from
Iowa City, which was in railroad communication with Chi-
cago, to Nebraska City, and thence southward through Ne-
braska to Kansas. This route was opened by Lane, whose
party finally comprised one hundred and twenty-five well-
armed single men, and is said by most writers to have num-
bered, all told, six hundred men, women and children when he
reached the Kansas line. There General Lane found it desir-
able to assume the name of "General Joe Cook." While in the
East, General Lane had made a sensation by a most eloquent
speech in behalf of Kansas, delivered at Chicago on the 31st
of May, 1856.3 He made full use of the sacking of Lawrence
and of the pro-slavery outrages in the Territory, and it was in

226 JOHN BROWN

large part to his eloquence that much of the heavy emigra-
tion to Kansas in the summer and fall of 1856 was due. How
great his oratorical powers were may be seen from a letter
of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of September 18, 1856,
now preserved in the collections of the Kansas Historical So-
ciety :

"Last night he [Lane] spoke in a school house; never did I hear
such a speech ; every sentence like a pistol bullet ; such delicacy and
lightness of touch; such natural art; such perfect adaptation; not
a word, not a gesture, could have been altered; he had every nerve
in his audience at the end of his muscles ; not a man in the United
States could have done it ; and the perfect ease of it all, not a glimpse
of premeditation or effort ; and yet he has slept in his boots every
night but two for five weeks."

The opening of the presidential campaign between Fremont
and Buchanan, as well as the events in the Territory, kept
Kansas in the forefront of national politics. The first Repub-
lican National Convention resolved, on June 17, that "Kansas
should be immediately admitted as a state of the Union
with her present free constitution." * The majority of the
Howard Committee submitted its report on July I, with much
resultant Congressional discussion of the Kansas situation, and
Oliver, the minority of the committee, followed suit on July II
with his report containing the evidence in regard to the Pot-
tawatomie massacre. Even then, curiously enough, the Potta-
watomie affair did not in any degree injure the Free State
cause in the North. ^ Oliver himself used it in a speech on
July 31,^ and Toombs, of Georgia, also made a passing refer-
ence to it ; ' but no one else in Congress. The Democrats con-
tinued to base most of their criticisms upon the general policy
of the Free State settlers in taking Sharp's rifles with them
to Kansas. The Elections Committee of the House reported
against the admission of Whitfield as a delegate and in favor
of Reeder; the House on August i voted against Whitfield
by no to 92, and against Reeder by 113 to 88, and thus
neither was given a seat.^ There were various attempts to
legislate during the summer. On June 25, Congressman Grow,
of Pennsylvania, presented a bill in the House for the admis-
sion of Kansas under the Tokepa Constitution, and the House
passed it by 99 to 97 on the day before Colonel Sumner dis-

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 227

persed the Topeka Legislature.' On July 2 the Senate had
passed by 33 to 12 votes the Toombs bill, which had been
reported by Senator Douglas from the Committee on Terri-
tories, in a form which betrayed clearly the alarm of the slave-
power over the injury done its cause by the excesses of its
agents in Kansas. The Toombs bill provided for a census of
all white males over twenty-one years of age, bona fide resi-
dents of the Territory. Those who were thus counted were to
be allowed to vote on November i for delegates to a Constitu-
tional convention, and due precautions were taken in the bill
to guard against fraud, intimidation and election irregularities.

But neither house of Congress would agree to the other's
bills, and the final adjournment came without any definite
legislation for the relief of Kansas. The House endeavored to
embarrass the President by attaching to two appropriation
bills riders in the interest of the Free State settlers. One of
these was soon dropped, but the other, attached to the Army
Appropriation bill by John Sherman, practically forbade the
President to use the troops for the purpose of sustaining the
bogus Kansas Legislature. As a result, the Army Appro-
priation bill failed. When Congress adjourned on August
18, a special session was called by the President. It met on
August 2 1 , and on August 30 the Army Appropriation bill was
passed without the Kansas amendment by a majority of
three votes, i"

More important for Kansas, during this period, was the
organization at Buffalo of the National Kansas Committee,
with Thaddeus Hyatt, of New York city, as president, in the
second week in July. In the six months of its existence this
National Kansas Committee forwarded two thousand emi-
grants by way of the land route of Iowa and Nebraska, and
received more than eighty-five thousand dollars in cash,
besides gifts of clothing aggregating more than one hundred
and ten thousand dollars." By January 25, 1857, the condi-
tions in Kansas had so improved, from the Free State point
of view, as to make further activity on the part of the Na-
tional Committee unnecessary. This record of its Chicago
headquarters is, of course, wholly distinct from the even more
remarkable record of the New England Emigration Society
and the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee.

228 JOHN BROWN

John Brown made but a short stay at Nebraska City. He
took leave of his invalids, obtained horses for himself and his
son, and joined a party of thirty men headed by Captain Sam-
uel Walker, and General Lane, upon whose shoulders from
now on rested the practical direction of the Free State cause
in Kansas, until the release, in September, of the leaders in
prison at Leavenworth. As Captain Walker had received
a message urging him to return to Lawrence at once, Lane
decided that they should push on to that town, one hundred
and fifty miles distant, as fast as humanly possible. He rode
into Lawrence alone, thirty hours later, arriving at three A. m.
of the morning of August 1 1 , all of his companions having
dropped by the wayside. ^^ Captain Walker rode nearly to
Lawrence, but John Brown stopped off at Topeka with about
one hundred and twenty miles to his credit.

As to his intercourse with John Brown during their two or
three days' journey to Nebraska City and their rapid return,
Captain Walker, one of the stoutest of the Free State fighters,
has left an interesting record in the shape of a curiously illit-
erate letter of February 8, 1875, addressed to Judge Han-
way, of Lane.'' In this epistle Walker declares his belief that
John Brown was insane during the summer of 1856. Brown
would always go off and camp by himself. One morning,
when Walker went to wake him, he was asleep, leaning against
a tree, with his rifle across his knees. " I put my hand on his
shoulder; that moment he was on his feet, his rifle at my
breast. I pushed the muzzle up and the ball grazed my shoul-
der. Thereafter, I never approached Brown when he was
sleeping, as it seemed to be his most wakeful time." As they
were riding together on the day of this incident. Walker re-
ferred to the Pottawatomie murders and frankly told Brown
that he would not have them on his conscience for the world.
Brown admitted that he was in charge of the murder party
and ordered the executions, but averred that he had not
raised his hand against any one man. It was on this occa-
sion, Captain Walker states, that Brown charged that the
responsibility of the crime rested upon Robinson and Lane
as instigators, as already related.* Walker also says that to
oblige Brown he took a message to John Brown, Jr., in which

* See page 184.

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 229

the father promised to effect his son's rescue on a certain
night; and that John Brown, Jr., repHed that he wished the
senior to stay away, as he was the cause of the son's arrest.
The latter did not, Walker averred, then approve of his
father's acts, and wished to have nothing to do with him at
that time, — a statement absolutely contradicted by the son's
letters from prison.*

The arrival of Lane and Brown at Lawrence, to which place
the latter soon returned from Topeka, despite his son's ear-
nest protest that he should not expose himself on any account
to the danger of arrest, was followed by aggressive warfare
on the part of Free State men. On August 5 the Lawrence
military companies, together with a few volunteers from
Osawatomie, among them August Bondi, had driven out the
pro-slavery settlement at New Georgia, on the Marais des
Cygnes, not far from Osawatomie.'* Word of their coming
had preceded them, and the Southern colony of from sixty to
seventy-five persons fled as the Free State men, at whose head
rumor placed the dread John Brown, approached. The vic-
tors burned the block-house and such of the abandoned pro-
visions as they could not carry away. To them the settlement
was a nuisance; its inhabitants were charged with stealing
horses, killing cows, injuring fences and being drunk in the
streets of Osawatomie. '^ To the Southerners this was a wicked
attack, announcing the beginning of civil war upon unarmed
men and women, whose property was wantonly destroyed
or stolen, even to the clothes of the children. To the arrival
of Lane's army the outrage was attributed in a bellicose
proclamation issued at Westport on August 16 by Atchison
and B. F. Stringfellow. '^ It is an interesting fact that, if
drunkenness was a sin in Missourians, it did not prevent the
Captain, Austin, of the Osawatomie company from com-
pletely intoxicating himself on the road to this bloodless
battle."

"Old Capt. Brown can now be raised from every prairie
and thicket," wrote Jason Brown to his sister Ruth on Au-
gust 13, 1856,18 after hearing the pro-slavery story that his

* "You and those with you have done nobly and bravely," wrote the son
to his father on August 13, 1856.— Original letter^ in possession of Mrs. John
Brown, Jr. '^~ '

230 JOHN BROWN

father was in command at New Georgia. Atchison and String-
fellow placed John Brown at the head of the Free Soil men
in every skirmish and raid of this month." The New York
Times' s correspondent called him the "terror of all Mis-
souri" and the "old terrifier." ^o O. C. Brown, of Osawatomie,
says, "Old John Brown's name was equal to an army with
banners." ^i At Paola, seven miles from Osawatomie, a pro-
slavery meeting broke up in the greatest haste on hearing
that John Brown was coming to "take out" some men; and
the creek over which the invader would have to come was
heavily guarded all night by the frightened citizens of Paola."
Mary Grant records that once, when a large party of Mis-
sourians was returning to its State, the rear ranks called out,
by way of joke, "John Brown is coming! " whereupon the van
cut the mules from their traces and rode for their lives.^' It
is the opinion of R. G. Elliott, of Lawrence, that:

* "Brown was a presence in Kansas and an active presence all
through '56. Yet it was his presence more than his activities, that,
made him a power, — the idea of his being. He was a ghostly in-
fluence. No man in Kansas was more respected. Yet after Potta-
watomie he moved much in secret.""

"War! War! ! War! ! ! The Bloody Issue Begun! Up
Sovereigns! and to your duty! Patience has ceased to be a
virtue" — these were the headlines of the Leavenworth
Journal's extra on August 14, in which it described the next
aggressive movement of the Free State forces, the second
attack upon Franklin." Despite the lesson taught to the
Southerners by the successful raid of June 5, they persisted
in living in their Franklin homes. The original motive for
this new raid was the desire of Captain Thomas Bickerton's
artillery company for a six-pounder known to be at Franklin,
which had been originally captured at Lawrence, for which
town it had been purchased by Horace Greeley, Charles
King, David Dudley Field and other prominent New York-
ers.2« Part of Captain Bickerton's report of the operations of
August 12 is as follows: "

"The Franklin affair was kept secret from the people. They
thought when they saw us going that we were going out by the
church to drill by moonlight. When we got up near to Franklin who

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 231

should come along but this 'Jo Cook,' on horseback, and make
himself known to the boys. They were very much elated with see-
ing Lane. . . . Afterthetakingof the place, our men, I am ashamed
to say, were so crazy over the way, in gutting Crane's store, that I
could hardly get any of them to help me in taking the cannon out
of the blockhouse. . . . The postoffice was not disturbed. ... I
went in only to see if any arms or powder were there. Found no
cartridges and only five balls. Got the cannon on the carriage and
brought it to Lawrence. ... I then went to work and made a
pattern for a ball ; as there was no lead in the place, and we had no
way of making them of iron, we had to take [G. W.] Brown's type
of the Herald of Freedom^

» The firing lasted, as usual, for several hours, and the town
was not surrendered until a wagon of burning hay was backed
up to the block-house. The Free State loss was one killed
and six wounded, while three pro-slavery men were severely
and one mortally wounded. The sack of Osawatomie was
avenged now by the securing of a rare amount of plunder,
composed of provisions, guns and ammunition.^s Major
Buford, of the Georgia colonizers, complained in a letter to
the Mobile Tribune that:

" Our money, books, papers, clothing, surveying instruments, and
many precious memorials of kindred and friends far away, were all
consumed by the incendiary villains who hold the sway. . . . We
are now destitute of everything except our muskets and an unyield-
ing determination to be avenged. . . . Southerners come and help
us. Bring each of you a double barrel gun, a brace of Colt's repeat-
ers, and a trusty knife." ^°

The news of the atrocious murder of Major Hoyt on the
same day undoubtedly inflamed the Franklin raiders. It made
the Free State men everywhere determined to drive out the pro-
slavery camps. They assailed, on August 15, "Fort" Saun-
ders, a strong log-house on Washington Creek, about twelve
miles southwest of Lawrence. After the customary fusillade,
the pro-slavery men retreated without bloodshed on either
side.'" Next on the list was "Fort" Titus, the stronghold of
Colonel H. T. Titus, an active pro-slavery leader. It was in
order to assault Titus's fort that Captain Bickerton's men de-
sired to recapture the Franklin cannon. There was real fight-
ing at Fort Titus, which Captain Samuel Walker, Captain
Joel Grover and a Captain Shombre attacked at sunrise of

232 JOHN BROWN

August i6 with fifty determined men.* Captain Shombre was
killed and nine out of ten men with him wounded in a rush on
the block-house. '1 In a short time eighteen out of the remain-
ing forty attackers were wounded, including Captain Walker.
After several hours of fighting, Free State reinforcements
appeared, including Captain Bickerton with the six-pounder
and its slugs made of molten type. It was run to within three
hundred yards of the fort and fired nine or ten times. At its
first shot its cannoneer cried, "This is the second edition
of the Herald of Freedom .' " As Titus still showed no white
flag, a load of hay was again resorted to, and with the same
success as at Franklin. As the wagon was backed up to the
log-fort, and before the match was applied, the party sur-
rendered. Colonel Titus was discovered badly wounded by
a shot fired by Luke F. Parsons, later a devoted follower of
John Brown. '2 Walker captured thirteen horses, four hundred
guns, a large number of knives and pistols, a "fair stock of
provisions " and thirty-four prisoners, six of whom were badly
wounded. One dead man was found in the block-house before
it was burned to the ground. A Free State man stole a satchel
containing fifteen thousand dollars belonging to Titus, but,
says Walker, "it did him little good. He died a miserable
death in the far West." Everything not burned was appro-
priated by the Free State men. Colonel Titus himself nar-
rowly escaped with his life. But for Captain Walker he would
have been summarily killed on being taken, and but for
that same brave, vigorous character he would have been
executed at Lawrence, to which place the prisoners were at
once removed.

The testimony as to whether John Brown was at Saunders
and Titus is conflicting. He himself left no statement bearing
upon it, and Luke Parsons, James Blood, O. E. Leonard and
others are positive that he was not at either place. The weight
of evidence would seem to be on that side. John Brown, after
the Wakarusa " war," left Lawrence, saying, "I offered to help
you and you would not listen. I will still work with you, but
under no commander but old John Brown."" Thereafter his

"Within sight and hearing of the United States camp, where were guarded
the treason prisoners." The fight was witnessed by Major Sedgwick's troopers,
who failed, however, to interfere. — C. Robinson, The Kansas Conflict, p. 307.

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 233

disposition was to fight only when he was in sole command.
Moreover, his remaining at Lawrence during those crowded
days after his and Lane's arrival there might easily be ex-
plained by his desire to be near his imprisoned son, whose
rescue, if possible and advisable, was perhaps the strongest
motive for his return to Kansas from Nebraska City.'* But
that John Brown was at Lawrence when Walker arrived
with his prisoners admits of no doubt. Again his voice was
raised for the extreme penalty; again he asked a sacrifice of
blood. As Captain Walker portrays it:

"At a little way out of Lawrence I met a delegation sent by the
committee of safety with an order for the immediate delivery of
Titus into their hands. Knowing the character of the men I re-
fused to give him up. Our arrival at Lawrence created intense ex-
citement. The citizens swarmed around us, clamoring for the blood
of our prisoner. The committee of safety held a meeting and de-
cided that Titus should be hanged, John Brown and other distin-
guished men urging the measure strongly. At four o'clock in the
evening I went before the committee, and said that Titus had sur-
rendered to me; that I had promised him his life, and that I would
defend it with my own. I then left the room. Babcock followed
me out and asked me if I was fully determined. Being assured that
I was, he went back, and the committee by a new vote decided
to postpone the hanging indefinitely. I was sure of the support
of some 300 good men, and among them Captain Tucker, Captain
Harvey, and Captain Stulz. Getting this determined band into line,
I approached the house where Titus was confined and entered. Just
as I opened the door I heard pistol shots in Titus's room, and rush-
ing in I found a desperado named ' Buckskin ' firing over the guard's
shoulders at the wounded man as he lay on his cot. It took but one
blow from my heavy dragoon pistol to send the villain heels-over-
head to the bottom of the stairs. Captain Brown and Doctor Avery
were outside haranguing the mob to hang Titus despite my objec-
tions. They said I had resisted the committee of safety, and was
myself, therefore, a public enemy. The crowd was terribly excited,
but the sight of my 300 solid bayonets held them in check."

Colonel Titus was finally saved by Governor Shannon. In
his official Executive Minutes of August 18, Governor Shan-
non has thus recorded the final act of his governorship: "

"Governor Shannon this day resigned the office of Governor of
the Territory of Kansas, and forwarded his resignation by mail to
the President of the United States, having previously visited the
town of Lawrence, at the imminent hazard of his life, and effected

234 JOHN BROWN

the release of Col. H. T. Titus and others, who had been forcibly
taken there by the armed organization of outlaws whose headquar-
ters are at that place, and who had on the day before battered
down with artillery the house of said Col. Titus, robbed his premises
of everything valuable, and then burned his house to the ground,
kiUing one of his companions, and taking the remainder, with Col.
Titus and their plunder, to their fortified headquarters — Lawrence
— at which place said Titus was put on trial for his life, and sen-
tenced to die; which sentence would doubtless have been executed,
but for the timely interposition of Governor Shannon, who, in
consideration of the release of said Titus and his companions, con-
sented to release five men held in custody in Lecompton under legal
process, charged with being engaged in the late midnight attack
and sacking of the town of Franklin — the outlaws having per-
emptorily refused to release said Titus and others, upon his demand
as the executive ofificer of the Territory."

In the course of his farewell speech to the citizens of Law-
rence, Governor Shannon promised to deliver over to Major
Sedgwick the cannon taken from Lawrence on the 21st of
May, and added : " Fellow-citizens of Lawrence, before leaving
you I desire to express my earnest desire for your health, hap-
piness and prosperity. Farewell." ^^ Governor Shannon in
later years returned to Lawrence and settled there, winning
the regard and respect of his neighbors and former opponents.
Even his old enemy, Dr. Charles Robinson, whose opinions
about his former associates were subject to radical changes
with the lapse of years, paid him a high tribute after his death.
But his record as Governor was not one in which he could
righteously take pride.'' His resignation was not accepted
by President Pierce and he was removed from his office,'* his
successor being John W. Geary, who arrived in the Territory
on September 9, and remained only six months in this posi-
tion, resigning on March 20, 1857.

Besides the larger raids already recounted, August was a
month of minor warfare. Thus on August 13 the home of the
Rev. Martin White was raided by Free State men, among
them James H. Holmes, and ten pro-slavery horses were
weaned from their allegiance to a wicked and failing cause.
White, a prejudiced witness, asserted that the horses were
laden with plunder, but on this point the memories of Holmes
and Bondi, both participants, failed them.'' A reprisal was
reported by the Tribune on August 28, in these words:

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 235

"On the 22nd the Quaker Mission, on the road from Westport
to Lawrence, was attacked by an armed band of Georgians who
plundered the place, taking all the horses they could find, and com-
mitting all manner of wanton outrages upon persons and property.
. . . The inoffensive people were compelled to flee for their lives,
their property all stolen or destroyed." ■' "

The loss of horses seemed especially grievous to the Trib-
une's Lawrence correspondent, who doubtless had not heard
of the exploit at Martin White's.

John Brown's brief period of inactivity in Lawrence came
to an end immediately after the exchange of prisoners with
Shannon.* According to Bondi, he arrived in Osawatomie, for
the first time after the Pottawatomie murders, about August
20, "with a spick and span four-mule team, the wagon loaded
with provisions ; besides, he was well supplied with money and
all contributed by the Northern friends of the Free State
Kansas, men like Thaddeus Hyatt." Brown's avowed object
was to give the pro-slavery settlements of Linn and Bour-
bon counties "a taste of the treatment which their Missouri
friends would not cease to extend to the Free State settle-
ments of the Marais des Cygnes and Pottawatomie," — a
statement by Bondi which again refutes the allegation that
the Pottawatomie murders freed that vicinity from interfer-
ence by the Border Ruffians.

Naturally, as a good general, John Brown's first concern
was for the mounts of his men. Bondi avers that some of
Brown's men received prompt orders to capture all of "Dutch
Henry" Sherman's horses. He himself obtained, when these
orders were executed, "a four year old fine bay horse for my
mount," and "old John Brown rode a fine blooded bay,"
while "Dutch Henry" fell back, it is to be presumed, upon
Shanks' mare, and, between meditations upon his just pun-
ishment for sympathizing with Missouri, doubtless gave
thanks that he was still alive. He was shot down in the road —

* The following appeal from Lane was sent to John Brown from Topeka on
August 12 : " Mr. Brown — Gen. Joe Cook wants you to come to Lawrence this
night, for we expect to have a fight on Washington Creek. Come to Topeka as
soon as possible, and I will pilot you to the place. Yours in Haste, H. Stratton."
This Mr. Stratton is one of those who are certain that John Brown commanded
the "right wing of cavalry" in the attack on Fort Saunders on August 15. The
original of Stratton's message is in the Kansas Historical Society.

236 JOHN BROWN

as had been many an innocent Free Soiler — by Archie Crans-
dell, a Free State man, in the presence of James H. Holmes, on
March 2, 1857.*" With Brown came between thirty and forty
men, whom he forthwith began to organize into what he
called a " regular volunteer force," for the purpose of serving
throughout the war under his command. The " Covenant" *
drawn up by him under which the men enlisted, together with
the first enlistments and the by-laws which were intended to
be the articles of war, still exists, and shows that his company
organized as if the authority of a State were behind its com-
mander. **

Associated with Brown's company was one comprising in
part some recently arrived lowans, "every one mounted on
captured pro-slavery horses." John Brown now gave con-
siderable thought to the best way of defending Osawatomie.
According to C. G. Allen, one of the men encamped there,
Brown desired to meet the enemy at the Marais des Cygnes
crossing, to the east of the town, and then to fall back on
the twin block-houses. He was certain that the Missourians,
rumors of whose approach were already in the air, would come

in considerable force if at all, a prognostication eminently
correct.* 2

On August 24 the Brown and Cline companies set out for
the South, marching eight miles and camping on Sugar Creek,
Linn County. That evening John Brown made a speech to
his company, in which, according to Bondi, he made these
prescriptions for the conduct of his men when on the war-
path:

"He wished all of us to understand that we must not molest
women or children, nor to take or capture anything useless to use
for Free State people; further, never destroy any kind of property
wantonly, nor burn any buildings, as Free State people could use
them after the Pro-slavery people were driven out; never consider
that any captured horses or cattle were anything else but the com-
mon property of the Free State army, the horses for military use
and the cattle for food for the Free State soldiers and Free State
settlers. He ordered, also, that we, his company, should always
keep some distance in camp from the Cline Company, as they were
too riotous." '

* See Appendix.

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 237

While in camp here, news reached the captains that a large
pro-slavery force was in the immediate neighborhood. The
Cline company took the lead the next morning, going in one
direction. Brown's in another. The luck of running down the
enemy came to Captain Cline. He captured some spies and
finally reached and charged the camp, taking twelve prisoners
and the camp equipage, one of the Missourians being terribly
wounded in one leg. In the course of this fight at South Middle
Creek, the Free State men released George W. Partridge, of
Osawatomie, who had been taken prisoner by the Missouri
men the day before. But this rescue was of doubtful value,
since he met a violent end but five days later. The Border
Ruffians fled in all directions for dear life, shouting that John
Brown was pursuing.*' As part of the Border Ruffians had
gone toward Pottawatomie, John Brown and his men went in
that direction for a while and then circled back. The next
morning, August 26, at daybreak, the two Free State bodies
met. Brown charging at the head of his determined com-
pany in accordance with his characteristic tactics of seeking
close quarters. Fortunately, before an actual collision took
place, the friends recognized each other. An eye-witness in
Cline's company, Dr. J. W. Winkley, has thus described this
incident :

"They came swiftly up over the brow of the hill, in full view,
with Brown at their head, and, without halting or even slacken-
ing their speed, swung into line of battle. Only thirty men! Yet
they presented a truly formidable array. The line was formed two
deep, and was stretched out to give the men full room for action.
Brown sprang his horse in front of the ranks, waving his long broad-
sword, and on they came, sweeping down upon us with irresistible
fury. . . .""

After exchanging mutual congratulations, both bodies
parted again, not, however, until the prisoners had been duly
exhorted by John Brown and made to promise that they
would not take up arms again, and then set adrift. Dr.
Winkley thus recalls some of Brown's earnest and stirring
words: *^

"You are fighting for slavery. You want to make or keep other
people slaves. Do you not know that your wicked efforts will end
in making slaves of yourselves? You come here to make this a slave

238 JOHN BROWN

State. You are fighting against liberty, which our Revolutionary
fathers fought to establish in this Republic, where all men should
be free and equal, with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, you are traitors to liberty and
to your country, of the worst kind, and deserve to be hung to the
nearest tree. . . . You we forgive. For, as you yourselves have
confessed, we believe it can be said of you that, as was said of
them of old, you being without knowledge, 'you know not what
you do.' But hereafter you will be without excuse.

"Go in peace. Go home and tell your neighbors and friends of
your mistake. We deprive you only of your arms, and do that only
lest some of you are not yet converted to the right. We let you go
free of punishment this time ; but, do we catch you over the border
again committing depredations, you must not expect, nor will you
receive, any mercy."

John Brown then rode off to raid the pro-slavery settle-
ments on Sugar Creek. By a coincidence, the leader of the
Border Ruffian force was named Captain John E. Brown.
To his house the anti-slavery Brown paid an early visit, taking
as his toll fifty pro-slavery cattle and all the men's clothes
the house contained. Captain Brown assured the badly
frightened mistress of the house that there was no reason for
alarm, — that he never hurt women and children as did her
husband, for whom he left his compliments and the message
that he had an old score to settle with him.^^ Other houses
were similarly searched, and their cattle taken, on the ground
that they had originally been Free State before being pur-
loined by the pro-slavery settlers.

On Thursday evening, August 28, Brown reached Osawa-
tomie, travelling slowly because of the one hundred and fifty
head of cattle he drove before him. Both his company and
Cline's bivouacked in the town that night. The next morning
early they divided their plunder and cattle, and Brown moved
his camp to the high ground north of Osawatomie, where now
stands the State Insane Asylum.*' It was then known as
Crane's ranch. An ordinary commander would have allowed
all his men to rest. But not John Brown. He was in the
saddle all day, riding with James H. Holmes and others of his
men miles along Pottawatomie Creek, whence he crossed to
Sugar Creek, returning to Osawatomie with more captured
cattle by way of the Fort Scott trail. The locality they rode
through bore many evidences of the irregular warfare going on;

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 239

they passed near the homes of the murdered pro-slavery men
and the deserted cabins of Free State settlers. One of Brown's
companions, George W. Partridge, passed his own claim, and
there saw his aged parents for the last time, all unconscious
of the impending and, for him, fatal conflict of the next day.
To Holmes, John Brown appeared on that afternoon more
than ever the natural leader. He rode a tall and strong chest-
nut horse; his spare form was more impressive when he was
mounted than when he was afoot. Alert and clear-sighted, he
ceaselessly watched the landscape for evidences of the enemy.**

It was as he was returning thus, in a cloud of dust, and
driving the motley herd before him, that he met a party of
men galloping toward him. The newcomers turned out to be
his son Frederick, Alexander G. Hawes, John Still, George
Cutter and a Mr. Adamson, who had been sent down from
Lawrence by General Lane with the earnest request that John
Brown and the other leading Free State men go at once to
Lawrence, to take part in the reorganization of the Free State
forces, and also to oppose Atchison, who was then reported
about to invade Kansas once more and with a large body of
men.*' After consultation it was decided that the call should be
heeded on the next day. As both parties reached Osawatomie,
about sundown, John Brown and his son Frederick parted for
the last time. The son went on toward Lawrence, but, accord-
ing to George Cutter, he felt indisposed and decided to spend
the night at the house of a settler named Carr, on the Law-
rence road, only a couple of hundred yards from the cabin of
his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Adair. With Frederick Brown stayed
Mr. Hawes. Either at Carr's or in the neighboring Cronkhite
house were Still, Cutter and Adamson as lodgers for the night.

John Brown and his party, with the exception of Holmes,
who spent the night in town, crossed the Marais des Cygnes
to their camp on the Crane claim, taking their cattle with
them. Captain Cline and about fifteen men remained in the
town, at the juncture of the Marais des Cygnes and the Potta-
watomie; here stood the hamlet and its block-house, the latter
facing toward the east, from which direction it was feared
the Missourians might come. The cry of wolf had, however,
been heard in Osawatomie so often, that on the 29th of August
no especial apprehension was felt.

240 JOHN BROWN

Captain Shore and a small company of Chicago men
left about three o'clock in the afternoon, bound northward
toward Lawrence, and no sentinels were put on guard save
by John Brown, in accordance with the articles of enlistment
of his company. Two of his men, Bondi and Benjamin, were
on guard from two A. M. on the morning of the 30th until the
firing began,'" but they were at a considerable distance from
Osawatomie, facing toward Paola to the northeast, from
which direction John Brown himself expected that the ad-
vance, if any, would be made. Early in the night the long-
expected warning came, after nearly every one had gone to
bed. John Yelton, a mail-carrier, arrived fresh from a ten
days' captivity in the town of New Santa F6, Missouri,
and warned the Greer family that the citizens must prepare
either to fight at once or flee. Both Holmes and Dr. Upde-
graff were sleeping in the house, but were too tired fully to
comprehend the warning. Action was therefore deferred until
daylight.

Yelton's information was wholly correct. The plan to raid
Osawatomie and finally destroy it had carefully matured in
the minds of the pro-slavery leaders, but Osawatomie was
only one objective of the formidable expedition which left
Westport on August 23, and marched on the same day to
New Santa Fe. There four hundred and eighty pro-slavery
men were found in camp. By the 25th, the number of the
Ruffians then being eleven hundred and fifty, they were reg-
ularly organized as two regiments, with Atchison as major-
general, John W. Reid, a Mexican War veteran, as brigadier-
general, and Colonel P. H. Rosser, of Virginia, as colonel
of the second regiment, while the first was entrusted to a
Colonel Brown. Camp was broken on the 26th. On the
29th, at Bull Creek, forty miles from Osawatomie, General
Reid, with two hundred and fifty mounted men and one six-
pounder, was detached to proceed to the Abolition settlement.
According to a pro-slavery officer, W. Limerick, who wrote
to General Shields, of Lexington, Missouri, on the 29th from
Bull Creek, the plan was to attack Osawatomie at once:

"It will all be destroyed; we then go to Hickory Point, all the
houses in the settlement will be burned ; Topeka will share the same
fate. We will wait at this place for some 200 or 300 men expected

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 241

to arrive to-morrow. We are confident of success and expect to clear
the whole territory of Abolitionists before our return. ... I am
just informed that Lawrence will be attacked on Sunday next."

General Reid made an all-night march, on leaving Bull
Creek, and, taking a leaf out of John Brown's tactics, reached
Osawatomie in the early morning. He was too experienced
a soldier to enter from the direction from which he would be
expected, but passed the town to the south and, after getting
well beyond it, went northward until he struck the Lawrence
road. He then turned his army again, and just as the light
began to glimmer in the east, on the morning of the 30th,
reached the high ground above the town, near the Adair, Carr
and Cronkhite houses. He thus not only entered from the
west, but had the opportunity to charge downhill into the
settlement, if he wished to utilize it.

On his way, Reid's men were joined by the Rev. Martin
White, as malignant as ever in his hatred of all Free Soil men,
and particularly eager to enter Osawatomie in order to recap-
ture some of his stolen horses. Because of his knowledge of
the country, White joined the " point" of the advance guard,
composed of two or three men. As they came over the crest
of the hill, with the Adair cabin to the left of the road and the
Carr house to their right, a tall and vigorous man approached
them, all unsuspicious of their purpose. It was Frederick
Brown, who had risen early to feed the horses, which had been
left overnight on the Adair place, preparatory to a prompt
start for Lawrence. It is the tradition in Osawatomie that
Frederick Brown greeted White in a friendly way. White
himself thus told the story to the Kansas (pro-slavery) House
of Representatives on February 13 of the next year:

"Whilst I was acting as one of the advance guard coming in con-
tact with their picket guard, Frederick Brown, one of their guard,
advanced toward us. We halted and I recognized him and ordered
him to 'halt,' but he replied, 'I know you!' and continued to ad-
vance towards me. I ordered him a second time to 'halt.' By this
time he was getting very close to me, and threw his hand to his
revolver; to save my own life I shot him down."^

White's first bullet went straight through his victim's heart
and Brown tumbled to the ground, — probably without hav-
ing any thought of violence before consciousness fled forever.

242 JOHN BROWN

If it was the spell of the Pottawatomie murders which had
brought him back to the neighborhood of the dread crimes
upon which he had gazed helpless, between a sense of wrong
and fidelity to his dominating father, he had now paid in
full for his participation as an accessory. Certain it is that
Frederick Brown was no more prepared for his sudden end than
were the men whose blood had been shed by John Brown's
orders, that there might be remission of sin for the Border
Ruffians. White pretended to recognize the boots on Brown
as a pair stolen from his son in the raid upon White ; but there
is no evidence to show that Frederick Brown was at that time
elsewhere than in Lawrence. On January i, i860, White
wrote to the Bates County, Missouri, Standard: "The same
day I shot Fred, I would have shot the last devil of the gang
that was in the attack on my house, if I had known them and
got the chance," — a truly Christian sentiment for a minister
of the gospel.

The pretence that he saw in Frederick Brown a picket of
the enemy was obviously an afterthought of White's. There
was no sign of any stirring as the two men met, and the next
few developments certainly dispel the theory that the laws
of war were being followed. The shot that killed Brown was
heard both at the Adair and Carr houses, as well as the noise
of horses' feet as the advance guard passed on toward the town.
As the Rev. Mr. Adair came hurriedly out of his house, he met
David Garrison, a relative and a settler in that vicinity, who
had slept in a shed in the rear of the Adair cabin. They hurried
to the road, and, looking down it. Garrison asked: "What is
that lying on the road? " Adair thought it a blanket — only to
find it was the body of his nephew Frederick. As they stood
over the corpse, some of the others, Cutter and Hawes among
them, arrived from the Carr house. Adair hurried westward
to see if any one else was coming, and quickly perceived the
head of the main column of Reid's forces, now steadily ap-
proaching. He hurried back, shouting to the others to save
themselves. Adair safely reached his own cabin, gave a warn-
ing, and then hid in the bushes unharmed until his children
found him and notified him that he might return. No such
good fortune attended the others. Garrison, Hawes and Cut-
ter made the mistake of returning to Carr's, where they were

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 243

speedily seen and pursued into the brush. Hawes miraculously
escaped without injury, the Border Ruffians almost riding
over him. Cutter, being overtaken after exchanging shots with
his pursuers, received in his head and body four charges of
buckshot. Leaving him for a moment, the Ruffians followed the
unarmed Garrison, and overhauled and summarily despatched
him. Returning to Cutter, one of the Ruffians dismounted,
kicked him, turned him over and said: " He breathes; if I only
had another charge in my gun, I would put it in his head. I
guess that would fix him." Fortunately for Cutter, the Mis-
sourian could not make his revolver work, and so rode off
saying: "Let him rip, he will die fast enough!" — Such was
humanity in Kansas on the 30th of August, 1856! Despite
thirty distinct wounds. Cutter survived his terrible experi-
ence, Hawes bringing him aid and food as soon as the Ruf-
fians disappeared.

Had Reid's men now galloped directly into the village,
which was but a mile and a half away, they would have been
in complete control before any one could have slipped away.
Instead, his men delayed on the ridge, perhaps for breakfast,
and the news of their coming and of the death of Frederick
Brown was carried into the town by Charles Adair, a mere
boy, who galloped in. A messenger at once crossed the river
to alarm John Brown. The first to take the aggressive were
Dr. Updegraff and Holmes. The latter, who was saddling
up when the news came, rode up toward the Adairs' until he
sighted the Border Ruffians, upon whom he fired three times
from his Sharp's rifle. This incident again checked the advance
and gave the Free State men time to rally to the defence.
Brown himself was preparing breakfast as the news of his
son's death reached him. He seized his arms, cried, "Men,
come on!" and with Luke F. Parsons hurried downhill to the
crossing nearest the town. The others delayed to finish their
coffee, but most of them overtook their leader as he reached
the town. On their way John Brown asked: "Parsons, were
you everunder fire? " " I replied, ' No,' " relates Parsons, " 'no,
but I will obey orders. Tell me what you want me to do.'"
To which Brown answered with the well-known sentence,
"Take more care to end life well than to live long." With this
sentiment on his lips, the grim chieftain of the "volunteer

244 JOHN BROWN

regulars" entered the engagement which gave him more
renown than anything save the dimax of his career; from
this time forward it was as "Old Osawatomie Brown" that
he was most generally knoAvn,

As they reached the block-house, Brown said: "Parsons,
take ten men and go Into that block-house and hold your posi-
tions as long as you can. I '11 take the rest of the men, go into
the timber and annoy them from the flank." This Parsons
did, finding in the block-house Spencer Kellogg Brown, son
of O. C. Brown, the founder of the town, a lad fourteen years
old, of rare pluck and daring disposition, who, being allowed
to go and get a rifle, returned with it in a few minutes. From
the second story, Parsons's men saw the Border Ruffians com-
ing in two long lines with their brass cannon. One of them
cried, "We cannot stay here, they will drive us out." When
Parsons and Austin took their places in the second story to
study the situation, their men all decamped to join Brown.
Following them. Parsons met Captain Cline and his company
of fifteen well-mounted men retiring through the town, aban-
doning their cattle and other plunder. Only four days pre-
viously, this little band, then considerably larger, had gallantly
charged the Border Ruffians on South Middle Creek. On this
particular morning, Captain Cline could not be induced to stay
very long on the line of battle; one of his men, Theodore
Parker Powers, was killed in the few minutes they were at
the front. Captain Cline explained to the Tribune " that his
men did not retire until they ran out of ammunition. In any
event, their disappearance weakened the Free State force not
a little. Parsons and Austin found that Brown had skilfully
hidden his men behind the trees and brush in the fringe of
timber along the Marais des Cygnes, which ran nearly par-
allel to the road down which the Missourians were coming.
There is to-day still a fringe of timber along the river, and still
the open space across which the opposing forces fired at each
other.

The Border Ruffians were mounted and in the open. When
the shots from the Free State men struck among them, the
agitation caused by wounded men or horses threw the com-
panies into confusion, which they at first tried to correct by
re-forming under fire. As the firing grew hotter, more men

THE OSAVVATOMIE BATTLEFIELD
Looking toward the river

PART OF THE BLACK JACK BATTLEFIELD

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 245

joined John Brown, among them Alexander Hawes, unde-
terred by his narrow escape when Garrison and Cutter were
shot. As each man came under his eye, Brown placed him
behind a tree or a rock, but the leader himself walked up and
down, encouraging the others and bidding them make their
fire effective. His son Jason was near him most of the time.
Once Brown stopped and asked Parsons if he could see any-
thing torn or bloody upon his back. " No, Captain, I cannot,"
replied Parsons. "Well, something hit me a terrible rap on the
back," said Brown; "I don't intend to be shot in the back if
I can help it."

It is not probable that, all told, John Brown had more than
thirty-eight or forty men in line, aside from Cline's force. He
himself said about thirty. They held their ground well, even
after Reid brought his cannon into play. His grape-shot went
too high into the trees, bringing down branches and adding to
the discomfort of the Free Soil men, but not actually injuring
anybody. Next, the Border Ruffians dismounted, and, urged
by General Reid, who waved his sword and shouted loudly,
advanced toward the woods. At once Brown's men began to
retreat, following the stream and keeping in the protection of
the timber until they had gone some distance down toward
the saw-mill. When they were on the bank, all suddenly
turned as if an order had been given and jumped into the
river. It was the Border Ruffians' opportunity. In a skirmish
or in real warfare, to have an unfordable river at one's back
is the worst of tactics. For this John Brown must not be cen-
sured, since it was the only place where he could have made
a stand, unless he had chosen to fight in the settlement itself
and risked the lives of the women and children there.

But if Brown was not to blame for this strategy, the con-
sequences of it were serious, in that George Partridge was
killed in the river. Holmes saved his life miraculously by div-
ing when under heavy fire. Parsons and Austin narrowly
escaped Partridge's fate, Austin by hiding between some logs
near the saw-mill, and shooting a Border Ruffian out of his
saddle. Dr. Updegraflf , who had been badly wounded in the
thigh, managed to escape. George Grant had time to notice
that John Brown, as he waded the river, cut a "queer figure,
in a broad straw hat and a white linen duster, his old coat-

246 JOHN BROWN

tails floating outspread upon the water and a revolver held
high in each hand, over his head." Jason Brown, too, re-
members the generalissimo's Hnen duster; he, hke his father,
got safely across. The fourteen-year-old soldier, Spencer K.
Brown, fell into the enemy's hands, as did Robert Reynolds,
H. K. Thomas and Charles Kaiser. The latter, a veteran of
a European revolution, fought to the last on the edge of
the river before yielding to a relentless enemy. William B.
Fuller, a settler, was captured before the fight began, and
Joseph H. Morey later in the day.

In later years, General Reid insisted that there was no battle
at Osawatomie, — " merely the driving out of a flock of quail.""
But after the quail had crossed the river, there was still mis-
chief for Reid to do. He fired a round or two at the block-
house before all of Brown's men were out of range and hearing,
and then, when there was no reply, his Ruffians began the
work of reducing Osawatomie to ashes. This was done despite
General Reid's protest. If he had held his men bravely to
their work in the hour's fighting with Brown, he was unequal
now to saving the twenty-five to thirty houses and stores,
that were plundered and then burned. O. C. Brown's safe was
robbed of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, after which
the torch was applied to his house. Three bags full of mail,
which the warning mail-carrier, John Yelton, had brought,
were cut open and their contents examined and flung to the
winds. The horses and cattle at hand were gathered up and
carried off, including Cline's booty from South Middle Creek.
The saw-mill of the Emigrant Aid Society was not harmed,
because, it is said, a single man. Freeman Austin, opened such
a brisk fire on the Border Ruffians as they approached, that
they retired in haste.

By ten o'clock of that evening. General Reid's command
was back at the Bull Creek camp. On the next day he made
the following official report of his enterprise :

Camp Bull Creek, Aug. 31.
Gentlemen: — I moved with 250 men on the Abolition fort and
town of Osawattomie — the headquarters of Old Brown — on night
before last; marched 40 miles and attacked the town without dis-
mounting the men about sunrise on yesterday. We had a brisk
fight for an hour or more and had five men wounded — none dan-

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 247

gerously — Capt. Boice, William Gordon and three others. We
killed about thirty of them, among the number, certain, a son of
Old Brown, and almost certain Brown himself; destroyed all their
ammunition and provisions, and the boys would burn the town to
the ground. I could not help it.

We must be supported by our friends. We still want more men
and ammunition, ammunition of all sorts. Powder, muskets, balls
and caps is the constant cry.

I write in great haste, as I have been in saddle, rode 100 miles,
and fought a battle without rest.

Your friend,

Reid."

A joint letter of Congrave Jackson and G. B. M. Maughas,
"Capt. of Company B," dated at Bull Creek, September i,
gives another pro-slavery view of the fight:

"The enemy commenced firing on us at half a mile, which is point
blank range for Sharp's Rifles. They had taken cover under a thick
growth of underwood and numbered about 150. We charged upon
them, having to march 800 yards across an open prairie, against
an unseen foe, through a hail-storm of rifle bullets. This was done
with a coolness and ability unsurpassed, until we got within 50 yards
of them when we commenced a galling fire, which together with some
telling rounds of grape from our cannon, soon drove them from
their hiding place with a loss of some 20 or 30 men killed. We had
lost not a single man, and had only five or six wounded."^

The report of the death of John Brown persisted for only
a few days. That it was believed, or hoped for, in St. Louis a
week later, appears from the following editorial in the St.
Louis Morning Herald of September 6, 1856, which declared
that because of Pottawatomie, "by far the most atrocious
and inexcusable outrage yet perpetrated in that distracted
Territory, ... his death and the destruction of his family
would, for that reason, be less a matter of regret even with
men of the humanest feeling."

Brown made no attempt to rally his force after it was driven
across the Marais des Cygnes. It was too scattered to make
that possible. Indeed, Bondi, Benjamin and Hawes set off
at once for Lawrence, and so, by himself, did Holmes. John
Brown and Jason spent a good part of the day searching for
a ford above the town by which they might cross to the Adair
house. But before they set out to reach their relatives and
find the dead body of their son and brother, Frederick, they-

248 JOHN BROWN

stood on the bank above the river and watched the smoke
and flames of burning Osawatomie. "God sees it," said John
Brown, according to Jason, as he watched this spectacle, the
tears rolling down his face. " I have only a short time to live
— only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause.
There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done
for. I will give them something else to do than to extend slave
territory. I will carry the war into Africa."

If the Border Ruffians were at sea in their estimate of the
loss of life they had inflicted, John Brown was still further
from the mark in his report of General Reid's casualties.
This appears from his letter of September 7 to his family:

Lawrence K T 7th Sept 1856
Dear Wife & Children Every One I have one moment to
write to you to say that I am yet alive that Jason, & family were well
yesterday John ; & family I hear are well ; he being yet a prisoner.
On the morning of the 30th Aug an attack was made by the ruffians
on Osawatomie numbering some 400 by whose scouts our dear
Fredk was shot dead without warning he supposing them to be
Free State men as near as we can learn. One other man a Cousin
of Mr. Adair was murdered by them about the same time that
Fredk was killed & one badly wounded at the same time. At this
time I was about 3 miles off where I had some 14 or 15 men over
night that I had just enlisted to serve under me as regulars. These
I collected as well as I could with some 12 or 15 more & in about
f of an Hour attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth,
with this force we threw them into confusion for about 15 or 20
minuets during which time we killed & wounded from 70 to 80 of
the enemy as they say &" then we escaped as well as we could with
one killed while escaping ; Two or Three wounded ; & as many more
missing. Four or Five Free-State men were butchered during the
day in all. Jason fought bravely by my side during the fight &
escaped with me he being unhurt. I was struck by a partly spent
Grape, Canister, or Rifle shot which bruised me some, but did not
injure me seriously. "Hitherto the Lord hath helped me " notwith-
standing my afflictions. Things seem rather quiet just now; but
what another Hour will bring I cannot say. I have seen Three or
Four letters from Ruth & one from Watson, of July or Aug which
are all I have seen since in June. I was very glad to hear once
more from you & hope that you will continue to write to some of
the friends so that I may hear from you. I am utterly unable to
write you for most of the time. May the God of our fathers bless
& save you all

Your Affectionate Husband & Father,

John Brown. :

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 249

Monday morning, 8th Sept. 56
Jason has just come in Left all well as usual. Johns trial is to
come off or commence today. Yours ever

John Brown.''

Subsequently, John Brown thus summarized the results of
the fight for Lydia Maria Child:

Border Ruffian force at Osawatomie Aug. 30th 400 men.
Free State force 30 men.

Ruffians (as by their private account 31 or 32) killed, & from
45 to 50 wounded.

Loss of Free State men in the fight one killed & 2 wounded Free
Statemen murdered Four ; & one left for dead with twenty shot &
bullet holes. One proslavery man murdered by themselves.

Your friend

John Brown."

The pro-slavery man reported murdered was named Wil-
liam Williams, said to have been a "Free State Missourian,"
whom neither party claimed ; his name is not on the Osawato-
mie monument. He was killed in the town before the Border
Ruffians left. As to the loss of the latter, there is no evidence
to show in contemporary accounts or newspapers that it was
as heavy as Brown himself thought. He prepared for the
press, on the same day that he wrote the above letter, a more
elaborate story of the battle, which in no wise differed from
the letter in any of its facts. It is a concise and excellently
written narrative, one of the best products of his pen. In it he
thus explains his plan in taking his men into the timber:

"As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy,
I placed twelve of the recruits in a log-house hoping we might be
able to defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men
together, whom we armed with guns, and we started in the direction
of the enemy. After going a few rods we could see them approach-
ing the town in line of battle, about half a mile off, upon a hill west
of the village. I then gave up all idea of doing more than to annoy,
from the timber near the town, into which we were all retreated,
and which was filled with a thick growth of underbrush ; but I had
no time to recall the twelve men in the log-house, and so lost their
assistance in the fight. At the point above named I met with Cap-
tain Cline, a very active young man, who had with him some twelve
or fifteen mounted men, and persuaded him to go with us into the
timber, on the southern shore of the Osage, or Marais des Cygnes,
a little to the northwest from the village."^'

250 JOHN BROWN

It would seem from the above that John Brown was not
aware that the men from the block-house joined his line. Yet
he must have known that Parsons and Austin joined him.
This confusion may account for his underestimate of the men
who, from their own narratives and those of others, are known
to have fought with him in the timber. As for the prisoners,
Charles Kaiser met the same cruel fate as did Dow, Major
Hoyt, Hoppe and the long list of those murdered in cold blood
by the Border Ruffians. Two days after his capture, on Sep-
tember I, after the army of Atchison had retreated to Cedar
Creek, he was taken out and shot to death, — first having
been told, it is said, to run for his life. This cowardly murder
is assigned by one of the prisoners as a reason why the Border
Ruffian force, the command of which was resigned by Gen-
eral Atchison to General Reid on the same day, began to melt
away.'' Spencer Kellogg Brown, the boy prisoner, was set
free by the Border Ruffians, only to die, if anything, more
tragically than Kaiser. After having been a useful Federal
spy, he was caught by the Confederates and hanged in Rich-
mond on September 25, 1863, when but twenty-one years
old.^" The other four prisoners were sent down the Missouri
River on the Polar Star, under pain of death if they re-
turned to Kansas. At St. Louis they were permitted to go
their way.

The news of Brown's defeat and the burning of Osawato-
mie intensified an altogether critical situation in Kansas. The
acting Governor, Woodson, was openly pro-slavery; it was
his proclamation of August 25, declaring Kansas to be "in
a state of open insurrection and rebellion," and calling on all
good citizens to put down the "large bodies of armed men,
many of whom have just arrived from the States," which gave
Atchison and Reid's army the excuse to masquerade once
more as Kansas militia, or assistants to the legally constituted
authorities. That they were a large body of armed men, all of
whom had just arrived from another State, did not in the least
excite Mr. Woodson's distrust. Three days after the battle of
Osawatomie, on September 5, he even went so far as to order
Lieut.-Col. Cooke, of the United States Dragoons, to proceed
at once to Topeka, to invest the town and disarm and arrest
"all the insurrectionists or aggressive invaders against the

THE FOE IN THE FIELD' 251

organized government" to be found at or near Topeka, and to
retain them as prisoners. He was especially ordered to level
all their breastworks, forts or fortifications, to the ground, and
to intercept all armed persons coming over "Lane's trail"
from the Nebraska line to Topeka." Naturally, Lieut.-Col.
Cooke declined to obey so extraordinary and partisan an
order, for which decision he was subsequently highly com-
mended by the Secretary of War. Jefferson Davis, however,
was so greatly wrought up over the situation in the Terri-
tory on September 3, that "the position of the insurgents"
seemed to him "open rebellion against the laws and consti-
tutional authorities, with such manifestation of a purpose to
spread devastation over the land, as no longer justifies fur-
ther hesitation or indulgence." In thus expressing himself to
General Smith, he added that "patriotism and humanity alike
require that rebellion should be promptly crushed. . . ." To
this end, General Smith was notified that the President had
ordered the organization of the Kansas militia ; that the gen-
eral was to ask for as much of this force as he needed for the
work of pacification, and, if he could not get sufficient aid
from this source, he was authorized to call upon the Govern-
ors of Kentucky and Illinois for the two regiments of foot
militia requisitioned that same day by President Pierce from
each State, in accordance with his constitutional rights.*^ An
excellent regiment of regular infantry, the Sixth, had already
been sent to the Territory as a reinforcement to the First Cav-
alry and Second Dragoons. As it turned out, the Territory
could raise only a few companies of bona fide militia for Gen-
eral Smith, but a sudden change in events made it unneces-
sary for him to ask for more troops, or to call on the Illinois
and Kentucky executives.

General Smith himself, in explaining, under date of Sep-
tember 10, to the War Department how it was that Osa-
watomie was sacked when there were regulars in the vicinity,
reported that Brown had had thirteen men killed, and bluntly
added, "though there is nothing to regret as to those who
suffered, yet the act was a grossly unlawful act, and deprives
those who took part in it of all consideration for the future."
Their consideration in the near future was already the prob-
lem of Lieut.-Col. Cooke; for Reid's force, after retiring

252 JOHN BROWN

to Missouri, was again being recruited for a fresh and final
attack on Lawrence. Meanwhile, the Free State men were
Cooke's immediate care. Lane, still pretending to be "Joe
Cook," had made a weak effort to pursue Reid, but had fallen
back just as he arrived within striking distance. Then, on
learning that Marshal Donaldson and two deputies, supported
by bands of bogus militia, were raiding Free State homes
with warrants for the owners, and burning their houses if
the owners were absent, Lane and Colonel Harvey decided
to march upon Lecompton, make an armed demonstration,
and demand the release of the newest prisoners and of those
who had been arrested in August for complicity in the raid on
Franklin. '.

After some marching and counter-marching, a force from
Lawrence under Lane — who had concealed himself in the
ranks — and Captain Samuel Walker arrived at Lecompton
on September 5, late in the afternoon. Lieut.-Col. Cooke
instantly ordered out his regiment, took up a position be-
tween Walker's men and the town, and notified Walker that
he could fight that day only with United States troops." For
this privilege the Free State men were not thirsting ; but, with
the aid of the veteran dragoon colonel, they accomplished the
release of the prisoners. Woodson had already decided to let
them go, but his order, not yet executed, was now put into
force. As the Missouri militia had been dismissed by Wood-
son that morning and had almost all left, Lieut.-Col. Cooke
greatly regretted the appearance of Lane's men; he assured
them that "everything was going in their favor, and that it
apparently would be so if they would refrain entirely from
reprisals, or any outrages, return to their occupations, and
show moderation." **

This good advice the Free State men refused to take. On
returning to Lawrence, they found it full of refugees from
Leavenworth, where William Phillips, the Free State lawyer
who was tarred and feathered in May, 1855, had been deliber-
ately murdered on September 2, as a result of the election for
mayor. From elsewhere in the Territory the law-abiding and
the lawless were also moving into Lawrence, and to all of them
the refugees from Leavenworth, with their stories of the shoot-
ing of PhilHps in his own house, of murders and other out-

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 253

rages along the roads, and the driving out of hundreds of
defenceless women and children, made a strong appeal. At a
council of war on September 7, Lane, Harvey and other officers
and men of the Free State forces decided to march on Leaven-
worth. This council was interrupted by the cheering on the
streets with which John Brown's arrival in Lawrence was
greeted. Henry Reisner, of Topeka, an eye-witness, remembers
distinctly Brown's impassive demeanor and his bent figure
on his gray horse, with his gun across the saddle before
him. The uproar of cheering was, he says, "as great as if the
President had come to town, but John Brown seemed not
to hear it and paid not the slightest attention." " Brown
brought with him his sick adherent, Luke F. Parsons, and
was followed the next day by his son Jason. When asked
where he had been since his retreat under Reid's fire across
the Marais des Cygnes at Osawatomie, he related that he had
encamped on the Hauser farm, two and a half miles from Osa-
watomie, for about a week, at first attempting to fortify it.
But the lack of men and the illness of Parsons and others
prevented.^*

From there Jason Brown and his father both went to their
friend Ottawa Jones, on Ottawa Creek, where they saw the
ruins of his home. Jones, who was an educated Indian, with
a New England woman for his wife, had befriended and
helped to feed John Brown and his party while they were
in the brush before and after Black Jack. No other charge
could have been brought against him than friendliness for
Free State people ; but a part of Atchison's army, guided by
Henry Sherman,* not only destroyed the house the evening
of the battle at Osawatomie, but robbed Mrs. Jones of every-
thing valuable. Not content with that, they partially cut
the throat of a helpless man, Nathaniel Parker, who was ill
in an upstairs room, and threw him over the bank of the
creek.

It is easy to imagine John Brown's indignation at this out-
rage; but there was nothing to be accomplished now south of
Lawrence, and so, placing Parsons in a wagon, he had driven

* "Henry Sherman led the mob that burnt Ottawa Jones's house last summer
and tried to kill Jones." — Rev. S. L. Adair to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Davis, Osa-
watomie, March 4, 1857- —Original in possession of Mrs. S. C. Davis.

254 JOHN BROWN

with him to Lawrence. After Brown's arrival, the Sunday
morning council reassembled and decided on the movement
against Leavenworth, Most of the men thereupon offered the
command to John Brown, — a responsibility he declined out
of deference to the other leaders ; and it was then entrusted
to Colonel James A. Harvey. With two companies, Harvey
marched on Easton and Alexandria, in Leavenworth County,
helped himself to pro-slavery provisions in the now approved
fashion, and then captured a small company of pro-slavery
men on Slough Creek, near what is now Oskaloosa. John
Brown did not accompany the command, which never reached
Leavenworth ; it was recalled by a message from Lane, advis-
ing the abandonment of the object because of the arrival of
the new Governor, John W. Geary. Almost simultaneously
with Harvey's movements, Charles Whipple, better known as
Aaron D. Stevens, raided Osawkee, a pro-slavery settlement,
taking eighty horses and nearly as many arms. Stevens was
now colonel of the "Second Regiment Kansas Volunteers."
"We in Kansas," he wrote to his brother about this time,
"have struggled against every species of oppression that the
wickedness of man invented or the power of the Devil ever
enforced." *' Carrying off eighty pro-slavery horses was in his
eyes no wrong; the United States marshal, Donaldson, thought
differently, and seven days after the raid, on September 17,
he arrested twelve of Whipple's men.«^ Four of them, includ-
ing John H. Kagi, who met his end at Harper's Ferry under
Brown, were committed by Judge Cato for highway robbery,
— an action they doubtless described as another Border Ruf-
fian outrage. "What in thunder," wrote Charles F. Gilman,
a Council Grove, Kansas, leader, on hearing of some of these
Free State raids, "is Missouri doing; is she going to let these
miserable, thieving, lying Nigger-Stealers and horsewhipping
scamps take this fine Territory without striking a blow for its
deliverance?" ^^

September 10 witnessed the reunion of John Brown with
his long imprisoned son and namesake, the political prisoners
being then freed. John Brown, Jr., who had never even been
indicted, was released on one thousand dollars bail, and hurried
at once to Lawrence. ' ' This evening,' ' wrote the correspondent
of the New York Times, "large numbers assembled in front

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 255

of General Lane's headquarters, where they were ad4ressed
by Judge Smith, the Rev. Dr. Nute, E. B. Whitman, Gov-
ernor Robinson, General Lane and John Brown. The meet-
ing was one of the most enthusiastic and heart-cheering of
any that has ever been held in Kansas." "• John Brown, Jr.,
brought his chains, worn bright by long use, with him ; they
were subsequently forwarded to Henry Ward Beecher as a
souvenir of Bleeding Kansas. But a better era than the Ter-
ritory had yet known was now ushered in with the arrival of
John W. Geary, the new Governor. He reached Lecompton
from Leavenworth at about the same time that the Lawrence
jubilation over the release of the prisoners was at an end. The
next day he issued a reassuring address to the people, and
two excellent proclamations, which, like his first report of
September 9 to Secretary Marcy, show how clearly he grasped
the actual situation.'^ In his address he urged that Kansas
begin anew; that the past be buried in oblivion.

" Men of the North — men of the South — of the East and of the
West in Kansas — you, and you alone," he said, "have the remedies
in your own hands. Will you not suspend fratricidal strife? Will
you not cease to regard each other as enemies, and look upon one
another as the children of a common mother, and come and reason
together?"

The blame for the situation he placed upon " men outside
of the Territory, who . . . have endeavored to stir up in-
ternal strife, and to array brother against brother." In his
first proclamation he ordered the complete disbandment of
the pro-slavery militia; in the other he ordered the forma-
tion of a new body, which he intended should be composed
of bona fide settlers, and be mustered by his order into the
service of the United States. His policy was, first of all, to
stop all lawlessness and guerrilla warfare, and in this he was
soon successful. He was as bitter against the pro-slavery
murderers of Leavenworth as against the Abolition ma-
rauders of the Whipple type, and became, as time went on,
more and more favorable to the Free State side, with the
result that he finally resigned office for the reason that the
Buchanan administration, alienated by his friendliness to the
Northern side, withdrew from him its support.

256 JOHN BROWN

' One of the immediate blessings of Governor Geary's arrival
was the prompt disappearance from the scene of General
Lane. He left for Nebraska at once, with a small band,
stopping on the way, however, to attack some pro-slavery
raiders. Finding them well barricaded in log-cabins at
Hickory Point, Lane sent back to Topeka for reinforcements.
Whipple and fifty men responded, but on their arrival, Lane
wanted Captain Bickerton's cannon and sent to Lawrence for
them. Colonel Harvey, just in from Slough Creek, and about
two hundred men responded, and arrived at Hickory Point
on Sunday morning, September 14. Meanwhile, General
Lane abandoned the siege on hearing of Governor Geary's
proclamations. As Harvey's men came straight across coun-
try, contrary to orders, they missed both Lane and Whipple.
Nevertheless, they at once attacked the pro-slavery force,
and after several hours of fighting captured it, killing one
and wounding four, and having five wounded on their side."
Both sides fraternized, agreed to retire without plunder, and
then separated. But Harvey's Nemesis was at hand in the
person of the Captain T. J. Wood already referred to, who
appeared on the scene that night with two troops of the First
Cavalry and a deputy marshal, with whom he had been search-
ing for Whipple's band. Harvey escaped, but Captain Wood
returned to Lecompton with one hundred and one prisoners
and such of their arms as he could find, including the cannon.
The prisoners were shown no favors, were all kept in confine-
ment for some time, and, after enduring genuine hardships,
were tried at the October term. The majority were acquit-
ted ; a number received sentences at hard labor, with ball and
chain, for periods of from five to ten years. With the men
of Whipple's force and others, there were now one hundred
and eighteen Free State men awaiting trial at one time,—
quite enough to serve as a vigorous deterrent to the other
Free Soilers. John Brown might easily have shared their fate.
Those sentenced did not, however, remain in jail long; they
had all escaped or been pardoned by the following March. But
Captain Wood's great haul was a stunning blow to Free State
lawlessness.

Governor Geary made his first visit to Lawrence on Septem-
ber 13. News having been received by him that pro-slavery

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 257

forces were threatening the town, he routed out Lieut.-Col.
Cooke's troops in the early morning of September 13." Four
hundred soldiers left at 2.20 a. m., the governor going with
them, and they arrived at Lawrence at sunrise to find every-
thing quiet. Three hundred Missourians had, however, been
seen the day before, and Governor Geary had received a
communication from General Heiskell, announcing that in
response to acting Governor Woodson he was on Mission
Creek with eight hundred men, "ready for duty and impa-
tient to act." Governor Geary found between two and three
hundred men in Lawrence and, being well received, addressed
them earnestly and then conversed at length with Governor
Robinson and other leaders, upon whom he made a favora-
ble impression. John Brown was not at these gatherings. By
nine o'clock the Governor and the troops left on their return
to Lecompton, the citizens giving three hearty cheers for
Governor Geary and Lieut.-Col. Cooke as they rode away.
The very next evening, on September 14, Geary again ordered
all of Lieut.-Col. Cooke's troops to Lawrence in hot haste,
to prevent an impending collision.'* They left at once under
Lieut.-Col. Joseph E. Johnston, First Cavalry, later the
distinguished Confederate general. The next morning Lieut.-
Col. Cooke and Governor Geary followed. This time it had
been no cry of wolf. Atchison, Reid, Heiskell, Stringfellow,
Whitfield and the other Missouri leaders had arrived at
Franklin, determined on a final attempt to conquer Kansas by
force of arms. They had with them no less than twenty-seven
hundred men, some of them completely uniformed and well
equipped. Besides infantry and cavalry there was a six-
pounder battery, — in all a remarkably strong force. Its ad-
vance guard had come in sight of the men on guard at Law-
rence on the afternoon of the 14th, and after an hour's
shooting at long range, the Missourians had retired on Frank-
lin. Naturally, the people of Lawrence were in great alarm ;
few were able to sleep that night, remembering as they did
Atchison's last visit to their town. There was, therefore,
general rejoicing when, on the next morning, Lieut.-Col.
Johnston's troops were found to be encamped on Mount
Oread, the hill overlooking Lawrence, where they had ar-
rived during the night.

258 JOHN BROWN

The town of Lawrence was at this time a strange mixture
of "stone houses, log cabins, frame buildings, shake shanties
and other nondescript erections," so wrote Colonel Richard
J. Hinton in his journal on September 3.'* He added:

"Lawrence presents a sad picture of the evils this partizan war-
fare is bringing over us. Buildings half finished or deserted are now
occupied as quarters for the small army of devoted men who are
fighting the battle of Freedom. Trade is at a standstill. Work is
not thought of, and the street is full of the eager, anxious citizens
who cluster eagerly around every new-comer, drinking in greedily
the news, which generally is exaggerated by the fears or imagination
of those who tell it. To a stranger, it seems a wild confusion, and
however much they may desire, the incidents come in so fast that
it is morally impossible to form a just estimate of the true condition
of things."

The defenders of this straggling town had erected some for-
tifications, of which they were very proud, a stone "fort" of
the remains of the Free State Hotel, and four earthworks
which excited the risibles of Lieut.-Col. Cooke and his officers,
— "ridiculous attempts at defences," Cooke officially called
them, "which I could ride over." But the day before Lieut.-
Col. Johnston's arrival, these amateur fortifications were
filled with very earnest Free Soil men, ready to defend Law-
rence at any cost. In the absence of Lane, the command was as
much in the hands of Major J. B. Abbott and Captain Joseph
Cracklin, of the "Stubbs," as of any one else. Some partisans
of John Brown have attempted to prove that he was in com-
mand, but the evidence is conclusive that he declined Major
Abbott's offer of the command of a company, and then, at his
request, went from one of the "forts" to another, encouraging
the men, urging them to fire low, and giving them such mili-
tary information as was his, everywhere, according to Major
Abbott, with excellent results.'^ Other men who were in the
forts that day, when Captain Cracklin and his "Stubbs"
returned the long range fire of the Border Ruffians, have tes-
tified to the value of Brown's presence, and the inspiration he
gave them. To a group of citizens in the main street he made
the following address, standing on a dry-goods box:

"Gentlemen — It is said there are twenty-five hundred Mis-
sourians down at Franklin, and that they will be here in two hours.

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 259

You can see for yourselves the smoke they are making by setting
fire to the houses in that town. This is probably the last opportu-
nity you will have of seeing a fight, so that you had better do your
best. If they should come up and attack us, don't yell and make
a great noise, but remain perfectly silent and still. Wait till they
get within twenty-five yards of you, get a good object, be sure you
see the hind sight of your gun, then fire. A great deal of powder
and lead and very precious time is wasted by shooting too high.
You had better aim at their legs than at their heads. In either case,
be sure of the hind sight of your gun. It is for this reason that I
myself have so many times escaped, for, if all the bullets which have
ever been aimed at me had hit me I would have been as full of holes
as a riddle." ''

Fortunately for all concerned, the worth of the forts and the
mettle of their defenders were never tested. The aggressive
and active Governor rode into town with Lieut.-Col. Cooke
at ten on the morning of the 15th. They found that Lieut.-
Col. Johnston had distributed his men in strong positions
on the outskirts of the town. Scarcely stopping to confer
with that officer, Cooke and Geary pushed right on to meet
a Missourian mounted company then in plain sight, not
two miles away. This company at once constituted itself a
guard of honor for the colonel and the Governor. At Franklin
the pro-slavery generals and chief officers were called together
in a large room "and very ably and effectively addressed by
Governor Geary " — so Cooke reported. After some inflamma-
tory speeches from the other side, the veteran dragoon himself
addressed the assembly, urging them,

"as an old resident of Kansas and friend to the Missourians to sub-
mit to the patriotic demand that they should return, assuring them
of my perfect confidence in the inflexible justice of the Governor,
and that it would become my painful duty to sustain him at the
cannon's mouth. Authority prevailed, and the militia honorably
submitted to march off, to be disbanded at their place of rendez-
vous."

It would have been well, however, if some of Cooke's men
had supervised this withdrawal. He himself went back to
Lawrence with the Governor and calmed the greatly excited
town, while Governor Geary again addressed the principal
men. They bivouacked with the troops, who slept under
arms after two night marches with scant provisions. The next

260 JOHN BROWN

day, Cooke and the Governor returned to Lecompton, following
the trail of the notorious Kickapoo Rangers. Some of these
men had burned the saw-mill near Franklin, "lifted" horses
and cattle, and mortally wounded David C. Buffum, for refus-
ing to give up the horse with which he was ploughing. Gov-
ernor Geary insisted on Judge Cato's taking the dying man's
deposition, and, to his credit be it said, made every effort,
though with little success, to have the murderer punished, the
pro-slavery judges giving no assistance.'^

Thus ended the last organized Missourian invasion of
Kansas, and for a time thereafter the Territory was at peace,
particularly as Lieut.-Cols. Cooke and Johnston were active
in capturing armed Free Soil men coming in from Iowa. They
took prisoners on October 9, for instance, two hundred and
twenty-three armed immigrants, headed by S. C. Pomeroy,
Colonel Eldredge and others." By November 12 the Gov-
ernor of Kansas announced to General Smith, commanding
the Department of the West, that peace prevailed throughout
the Territory, for which fact Governor Geary deserves great
credit. In consideration of these conditions and of the ap-
proach of winter, all the regular troops, with the exception of
two companies, returned to their regular stations.'"

The disbandment of Atchison's army was a fatal blow to the
hopes of the Missourians, and in the South generally it was
now beginning to be understood that the battle for Kansas
was rapidly being lost. Even before Atchison's disbandment,
an intelligent South Carolinian, member of the Territorial
militia, writing home in a moment of anger at the release of the
Free State prisoners in the presence of Lane's and Harvey's
men at Lecompton, blurted out the truth about the useless-
ness of those Southerners remaining who had come merely to
battle:

"And why should we remain? We cannot fight, and of course
cannot prevent our enemy from voting. The object of our mission
will then, of course, be defeated, and we had as well return. Which-
ever way the Kansas question be decided, 'tis my opinion, and the
opinion with all with whom I have conversed, that a dissolution
of the Union will be effected by it. The Abolitionists themselves
say they 'will have Kansas if it splits the Union into a thousand
pieces.'""

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 261

Not even the abstention of the Free State men from the elec-
tion of October 6 for delegate to Congress, for members of
the Legislature, and on the question of a Constitutional con-
vention, and the consequent election of Whitfield and other
pro-slavery men, raised any genuine hopes in the hearts of the
slavery leaders.

The restoration of peace, the release of his son and the
approach of winter were the reasons why John Brown decided
to leave Kansas for the East in search of rest and additional
funds to carry on the war for freedom. He had never meant
to be a settler, and there was nothing left to take him or his
sons back to Osawatomie. Their cabins, such as they were,
had been destroyed, and with them all their personal property,
and the books of John Brown, Jr., upon which he placed a
value of three hundred dollars. This son thought that to pre-
serve his reason he must return to a placid life and quiet
scenes.'^ John Brown himself, suffering from the prevailing
dysentery and chills and fever, was compelled to leave in a
wagon. He wrote to his family, however, that he would
return to Kansas if the troubles continued.*' With him into
Iowa went his three sons, John, Jason and Owen, while his
two daughters-in-law and their little sons took the river route,
now open to Free Soil traffic of this kind.

On departing from the Territory, Brown left the remainder
of his Osawatomie "volunteer-regular" company under the
command of James H. Holmes, with instructions to "carry
the war into Africa." This Holmes did by raiding into Mis-
souri and appropriating some horses and arms and other
property, for which he was promptly and properly indicted
and long pursued by the Kansas and Missouri authorities."
By October 10, John Brown and his sons were safely at
Tabor, after a very narrow escape from the vigilant Lieut.-
Col. Cooke, who, reporting on October 7 from a "camp near
Nebraska boundary," wrote: "I arrived here yesterday, at
noon. I just missed the arrest of the notorious Osawatomie
outlaw, Brown. The night before, having ascertained that
after dark he had stopped for the night at a house six miles
from the camp, I sent a party who found at 12 o'clock that
he had gone."" Evidently, Lieut.-Col. Cooke was not aware
of Osawatomie Brown's presence at Lawrence when he was

262 JOHN BROWN

there; nor did he know of the "outlaw's" other narrow es-
capes from capture. One of these incidents of the return from
Kansas is thus related by Jason Brown : ^ ^

"We crossed the river at Topeka. We had a four-mule team,
and a one-horse covered wagon. The mule team was full of arms
and ammunition that father was taking out to Tabor. I cannot
remember just now the name of the driver, but he was a man
who was always faithful to us and had stuck to us right through.
In the covered, one-horse team was a fugitive slave, covered over
with hay, father, lying sick, Owen, John and I. Owen, John and I
walked all we could to save the horse. At New Holton we came
out on a high prairie and saw the U. S. troops — a large body —
encamped on the stream below. When John and I saw that, we
thought we had fallen into a trap. ' We '11 go right down there,' said
father. 'If we do,' said John, 'we'll be captured. I for one won't
go.' 'I, for another, won't go,' said I. So father drove right on
down, and camped just outside their pickets, that night. But before
he got within two miles of that camp of troops, John and I left him,
— it was dark — and walked about six or eight miles — I am not
sure of the distance — around — and met father next morning,
about sunrise on the Nebraska road. Owen, as always, stuck with
father. For a time we and father travelled different roads and did
not meet. We finally got both wagons together at the ferry at
Nebraska City and camped. Next morning we crossed the river,
by rope ferry, into the southwest corner of Iowa. When we landed
we let the contraband out from the hay, fixed him up the best we
could, and travelled on to Tabor. There Owen stopped, and the
negro there found work. John and I had the horse to go to Iowa
City with. We rode and tied, to that point, where the railway
began."*"

Before leaving Lawrence, John Brown received two letters
from Charles Robinson, both of them of special interest be-
cause of the Governor's subsequent attacks upon Brown in the
never-ending and extremely bitter controversy as to whether
Brown or Lane or Robinson was the real saviour of Kansas:

Lawrence, Sept. 15, 1856.

Capt. John Brown: My Dear Sir: — I take this opportunity
to express to you my sincere gratification that the late report that
you were among the killed at the battle of Osawatomie is incorrect.

Your course, so far as I have been informed, has been such as to
merit the highest praise from every patriot, and I cheerfully accord
to you my heartfelt thanks for your prompt, efficient and timely
action against the invaders of our rights and the murderers of our
citizens. History will give your name a proud place on her pages,

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 263

and posterity will pay homage to your heroism in the cause of God
and Humanity.

Trusting that you will conclude to remain in Kansas and serve
during the war the cause you have done so much to sustain, and
with earnest prayers for your health and protection from the shafts
of Death that so thickly beset your path, I subscribe myself,
Very respectfully

Your Ob't Servant

C. Robinson."

The other letter, dated earlier, reads as follows :

Lawrence, Sept 13, '56
Capt. Brown
Dear Sir

Gov Geary has been here and talks very well. He promises to
protect us, etc., etc. There will be no attempt to arrest anyone for
a few days, and I think no attempt to arrest you is contemplated
by him. He talks of letting the past be forgotten so far as may be
and of commencing anew.

If convenient can you not come into town and see us. I will then
tell you all that the Gov. said and talk of some other matters.
Very respectfully

C. Robinson *'

On the back of this note is a pencilled memorandum of
John Brown, Jr., to his father, which includes among other
advice these words: "Don't go into that secret military
refugee plan talked of by Robinson, I beg of you." Over this
letter and sentence there was a vitriolic controversy between
John Brown, Jr., and Governor Robinson in 1883 and 1884,
the former insisting that at the private meeting requested, the
Governor asked Brown to undertake the kidnapping of the
leading pro-slavery generals, and the doing away of others in
Pottawatomie fashion, and that his father replied: "If you
know of any job of that sort that needs to be done, I advise
you to do it yourself." *' No one else has publicly accused
Governor Robinson of sinking quite to the depths of urging
deliberate assassination, and it is needless to say that he in-
dignantly denied the charge. Those who would decide where
the truth lies must make up their minds which man's word
was the weightier.

Free from any other blood-stain, John Brown quitted the
ravaged Territory. If he had deliberately committed the

264 JOHN BROWN

Pottawatomie murders in order to embroil Kansans and Mis-
sourians, he had every reason to view with satisfaction the
results of his bloody deed. The carnival of crime and the civil
war inaugurated by the sacking of Lawrence and the midnight
assassinations in the hitherto peaceful region of Osawatomie,
had brought eastern Kansas to the lowest state of her for-
tunes. Governor Geary accurately portrayed it in his farewell
to the people of Kansas on March 12 of the next year:

" I reached Kansas and entered upon the discharge of my official
duties in the most gloomy hour of her history. Desolation and ruin
reigned on every hand ; homes and firesides were deserted ; the smoke
of burning dwellings darkened the atmosphere; women and chil-
dren, driven from their habitations, wandered over the prairies and
among the woodland, or sought refuge and protection even among
the Indian tribes ; the highways were infested with numerous preda-
tory bands, and the towns were fortified and garrisoned by armies
of conflicting partisans, each excited almost to frenzy, and deter-
mined upon mutual extermination. Such was, without exaggera-
tion, the condition of the Territory at the period of my arrival.'""

Between November i, 1855, and December i, 1856, about
two hundred people are known to have lost their lives in the
anarchical conditions that prevailed, and the property loss in
this period is officially set down at not less than two millions
of dollars, one half of which was sustained by bona fide settlers,
the larger portion falling on the Free State emigrants.'^ How-
ever superior in character and intelligence and industry the
latter indubitably were in the beginning, there was but little
to choose between the Border Ruffians and the Kansas Ruf-
fians in midsummer of 1856. The Whipples and Harveys and
Browns plundered and robbed as freely on one side as did the
Martin Whites, the Reids and the Tituses on the other, and
there was not the slightest difference in their methods. Both
sides respected women; but in remorseless killing of individ-
uals, the Border Ruffians were guilty of a savagery that would
place them far below the scale of the Free Soil men, were it not
for the massacre on the Pottawatomie. If the Eastern press
discreetly refused to believe a single Free State outrage, or to
portray raids like those on Franklin in their true colors, the
pro-slavery partisans met every charge with the allegation
that It was an " AboHtion lie." In the eyes of New England,

THE FOE IN THE FIELD 265

Raid's taking the lives of Free Soil men at Osawatomie was
"butchery," while the exterminating of Border Ruffians was
merely "killing," — as John Brown phrased these incidents in
his story of that fight. Probably no one in the East in Octo-
ber, 1856, realized the utter demoralization of the Free State
men, or the violence and lawlessness of their methods. For this
ignorance the excitement of the Presidential campaign, which
resulted in Fremont's defeat, may have been in part respon-
sible. To many of the radical Abolitionists in the East, the
bloodshed in Kansas was a plain indication that slavery could
hereafter be ended only by the bayonet.'^

It is, of course, undeniable that the Border Ruffian outrages
in Kansas enormously aroused the North on the slavery ques-
tion and prepared the way for the tremendous outburst of
excitement or anger over the Harper's Ferry raid. But it is
idle to assert that Kansas would never have been free, had it
not weltered in blood in 1856; if the Sharp's rifle policy had
not been followed. Climate and soil fought in Kansas on the
side of the Free State men. The Southerners themselves com-
plained that their settlers who did reach Kansas were inocu-
lated with the virus of liberty, became Free Soilers and often
freed their slaves.^' The familiar slave crops never could have
been raised in Kansas with its bleak winters. Moreover, the
South was never a colonizing section ; the history of the set-
tlement of our Western communities proves this, if the fate
of Buford's band and its inability to settle down anywhere
did not. The final failure of the slave-power to hold the great
advantage it had in Kansas in 1855 was not due to fear of
weapons, but to inability to place farmers and pioneers on the
battle-ground. The wave of emigrants from the East was
from the beginning certain to roll over the Kansas plains, even
if it had not been expedited by the Emigrant Aid Societies, to
whom due credit for hastening the turning of the tide must be
given.

Equally certain is it that no one man decided the fate of
Kansas. In this narrative no effort has been made to estimate
the relative values to Kansas of Eli Thayer, the founder of the
Emigrant Aid movement, or of Charles Robinson, or of James
H. Lane, or of Brown. It would be an invidious undertaking;
to enter into the bitter disputes of the partisan followers of

266 JOHN BROWN

Robinson, Lane and Brown is a task which no historian
would attempt unless compelled by his theme to do so. Their
adulators have forgotten that properly to understand and esti-
mate the forces brought into play in Kansas, one must fairly
go back to the foundation of our government. The irrepressi-
ble conflict between freedom and slavery would have gone on
and come to a head had Kansas never been thrown open to
settlement, and that Territory must have been free had there
been no Lane and no Robinson and no John Brown. The
great nation-stirring movement of which they were a part
can best be likened to a glacier; for decades it moyed imper-
ceptibly; suddenly the people it overshadowed awoke to the
fact that their very existence was threatened by this mon-
strous mass of prejudice and wrong and crime.
/Of John Brown, as he left Kansas after just a year of
activity, with the most important period of his service to the
Territory behind him, it may truthfully be said that his deeds,
good and evil, had appealed strongly to the imagination of
all who read of him sympathetically. Like a relentless High-
land chieftain of old, he appeared to personify indomitable,
unswerving resistance to the forces of slavery. To those Free
Soilers who believed in the argumentative methods of the Old
Testament, his name was henceforth one to conjure with.
Not in his methods, however, but in his uncompromising
hostility to that human bondage for which he was ready to
sacrifice his life, lies his undoubted claim to a place in the
■s^history of Kansas and of the Nation.

CHAPTER VIII
NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS

At Tabor, Iowa, John Brown, weak and ill, met with a hearty
reception at the hands of that colony of Ohioans. Under the
leadership of George B. Gaston, for four years a missionary
among the Pawnee Indians, and the Rev. John Todd, there
had been founded at Tabor, in 1848, a community which was
intended to be another Oberiin.i Most of its settlers came
from that earnestly religious and bravely anti-slavery town.
They were steeped in its Abolition views and in sympathy
with its protests against hyper-Calvinism, — in short, brought
with them the Oberlin devotion to truth and liberty. It was
the most congenial soil upon which John Brown had set foot
since his departure from Ohio. Here all men and women
thought his own thoughts and spoke his own words. Though
it was then but a straggling prairie town of twenty-five houses,
with little of the present beauty of its wide and richly shaded
streets. Tabor was ever an attractive haven for John Brown
and his sons. On the overland route into Kansas, it was far
enough from the Territory to be free from disorder, and the
arriving and departing emigrant trains gave it an especial
interest and kept it in touch with the storm-centre of the
nation. News from Kansas came regularly, while the scattered
pro-slavery sympathizers in the neighborhood, who acted as
spies for the Missourians, or those who passed through en
route to the Territory, added zest to the town's life, particu-
larly when the Southern visitors were in search of the slaves
who passed on to safety and freedom by the underground
route. This long counted Tabor one of its important far West-
ern stations.

Mrs. Gaston has left the following account of conditions
in Tabor during the time of John Brown's visit:

"That summer and autumn our houses, before too full, were
much overfilled, and our comforts shared with those passing to and
from Kansas to secure it to Freedom. When houses would hold no

268 JOHN BROWN

more, woodsheds were temporized for bedrooms, where the sick
and dying were cared for. Barns also were fixed for sleeping rooms.
Every place where a bed could be put or a blanket thrown down
was at once so occupied. There were comers and goers all times of
day or night — meals at all hours — many free hotels, perhaps en-
tertaining angels unawares. After battles they were here for rest
■ — before for preparation. General Lane once stayed three weeks
secretly while it was reported abroad that he was back in Indiana
for recruits and supplies, which came ere long, consisting of all kinds
of provisions, Sharps rifles, powder and lead. A cannon packed in
corn made its way through the enemy's lines, and ammunition of
all kinds in clothing and kitchen furniture, etc., etc. Our cellars
contained barrels of powder and boxes of rifles. Often our chairs,
tables, beds and such places were covered with what weapons every
one carried about him, so that if one needed and got time to rest a
little in the day time, we had to remove the Kansas furniture, or
rest with loaded revolvers, cartridge boxes and bowie knives piled
around them, and boxes of swords under the bed."^

C

Here John Brown stayed about a week after his arrival
from Kansas. Here he stored the arms he had brought with
him, and this place he chose as the coming headquarters of the
band of one hundred "volunteer-regulars" for whom he now
planned to raise funds in the East to the amount of twenty
thousand dollars, and here actual training for war-service
against the forces of slavery was soon to begin. For this was
the plan which John Brown's brain had now f ormiilatedtl The
peace of Geary he did not value; indeed, he unjustly de-
nounced the Governor at this period as having been unpardon-
ably slow in reaching Lawrence with the Federal troops, when
that town was menaced by Atchison and Reid. He wanted a
secret unpaid force that would subsist as best it might between
periods of activity, but be ready with rifle, pistol and sword to
come together to repel invasion, or even to undertake a coun-
ter-invasion. If he rightly judged that hostilities between the
two contending parties in Kansas were not yet over, he over-
estimated the likelihood of a fresh outbreak when the spring
should come again. By then he hoped to return to Kansas
with plenty of arms and ammunition, and recruit the men he
wanted.]!

After his brief stay for recuperation, John Brown set out
over the overland route to Chicago by way of Iowa City and
Springdale, arriving there about the 22d or 23d of October

MAIN STREET OF TABOR, IOWA

THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT TABOR

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 269

with his sons, Jason and John Brown, Jr., who had preceded
him from Tabor. The father reported at once at the offices of
the National Kansas Committee, where his presence aroused
great interest. He was soon asked to accompany the train
of "freight" for the Free State cause then being conducted
through Iowa to Kansas by Dr. J. P. Root, in order to advise
that leader.

"Capt. Brown," wrote General J. D. Webster to Dr. Root
on October 25, "says the immediate introduction of the sup-
plies is not of much consequence compared to the danger of
losing them." On the next day, Horace White, then assistant
secretary of the National Kansas Committee, later editor of
the Chicago Tribune and New York Evening Post, wrote to
him this note:*

Office National Kansas Committee,
Chicago, Oct. 26, 1856.
Captain Brown, — We expect Mr. Arny, our General Agent
just from Kansas to be in tomorrow morning. He has been in the
territory particularly to ascertain the condition of certain affairs
for our information. I know he will very much regret not having
seen you. If it is not absolutely essential for you to go on tonight,
I would recommend you to wait & see him. I shall confer with
Col. Dickey on this point.

Rev. Theodore Parker of Boston is at the Briggs House, & wishes
very much to see you.

Yours truly,

Horace White, Assist. Sec, etc.

If you wish one or two of those rifles, please call at our office
between 3 & 5 this afternoon, or between 7 & 8 this evening.

W.

It is the testimony of Salmon Brown that his father did
turn back and return to Tabor in the wake of the Root train.
This had a special interest for him, because with it went his
two sons Salmon and Watson, who had received, when digging
potatoes at North Elba, the news of the battle of Osawatomie,
and of a speech by Martin White boasting of his having killed
Frederick Brown. The next morning they were on their way
back to Kansas for the avowed purpose of killing White',
Salmon going to the Territory for the second time, Watson
for the first. ^ Assisted by Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass
and other friends (to whom naturally they did not reveal their

270 JOHN BROWN

exact errand), they reached Chicago, where Mr. White gave
them each a Sharp's rifle, and then joined Dr. Root's party.
With it they unwittingly passed their father in Iowa, as he
was bound to Chicago. At St. Charles, Iowa, Watson wrote on
October 30 to North Elba that the train travelled very slowly,
and that he had heard a report that his father had gone East."
John Brown, on learning in Chicago of their whereabouts, at
once communicated with his son Owen, who had remained at
Tabor, urging him to stop the younger sons there until he could
arrive. Owen delivered the message, and Watson awaited his
father's arrival, Salmon pushing on to carry out his plan.
When he reached Topeka, he heard and credited a false story
of Martin White's death, and returned to his Uncle Jeremiah
Brown's at Hudson, Ohio, by the aid of a cavalry horse bought
from the hanger-on of a camp of the natural enemies of the
Brown family, — some regular cavalry, — without, however,
a perfect title to the mount.

At Tabor, Dr. Root's train deposited its arms and gave up
the attempt to enter Kansas. Curiously enough, there were
in its wagons the two hundred rifles which John Brown and
his men subsequently took to Harper's Ferry. The Rev. John
Todd's cellar was filled with boxes of clothing, ammunition,
these two hundred rifles, sabres and a brass cannon, for the
whole of that winter of 1856-57. With his son Watson, John
Brown soon left Tabor. They "rode and tied across Iowa on
a big mule and got to Ohio two weeks after I did," writes
Salmon Brown, whose cavalry steed had carried him eastward
in phenomenally short time. John Brown stopped again in
Chicago, early in December, arriving in Ohio after an absence
of over fifteen months.* He was not content, however, to lin-
ger with his relatives in Hudson; he pushed on to Albany,
Rochester and Peterboro.

* It was probably at this time that John Brown, visiting his half-sister, Mrs.
S. C. Davis, in Grafton, Ohio, made a characteristic reply to Mrs. Davis's ques-
tion: "John, is n't it dreadful that Fremont should have been defeated and such
a man as Buchanan put into office!"

"Well, truly," answered Brown, "as I look at it now, I see that it was the right
thing. If Fremont had been elected, the people would have settled right down
and made no further effort. Now they know they must work if they want to save
a free State." — Statement of Mrs. S. C. Davis, Kalamazoo, Mich., November
24, 1909, to K. Mayo.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 271

But[his overweening desire to obtain men, weapons and
supplies for Kansas left him no time for his Adirondack home.
Just after the New Year he arrived in Boston, and there began
a series of friendships which became of the greatest value
to him during the remainder of his life. Here he met for the
first time Frank B. Sanborn, ever afterward his most ardent
Massachusetts friend and defender, who was then acting as
a secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee^
Sanborn, then but a year and a half out of Harvard, was
on fire for the anti-slavery cause, and ready to worship any
of its militant leaders. John Brown, fresh from the Kansas
battlefields, made a deep impression upon this young Con-
cord school-master, who had turned over his scholars to a
Harvard student while he worked for Kansas. On January 5,
Sanborn thus recorded his first impressions of his life's hero to
Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the fighting young Uni-
tarian parson of Worcester:

"'Old Brown' of Kansas is now in Boston, with one of his sons,
working for an object in which you will heartily sympathize —
raising and arming a company of men for the future protectiion of
Kansas. He wishes to raise $30,000 to arm and equip a company
such as he thinks he can raise this present winter, but he will, as
I understand him, take what money he can raise and use it as far
as it will go. Can you not come to Boston tomorrow or next day
and see Capt. Brown? If not, please indicate when you will be in
Worcester, so he can see you. I like the man from what I have seen
— and his deeds ought to bear witness for him.""

To Mr. Sanborn, John Brown brought a personal letter
of introduction from a relative in Springfield, Massachu-
setts, and a general one from Governor Salmon P. Chase, of
Ohio, based on Charles Robinson's letter of commendation,
and dated December 20, 1856.* At onceJMr. Sanborn took
him to Dr. Samuel G. Howe and Theodore Parker. Patrick
Tracy Jackson, the treasurer of the Massachusetts State
Kansas Committee, George L. Stearns, Amos A. Lawrence,
Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., Judge Thomas Russell, Wendell
Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison were some of the other
friends Brown madeTJ Mr. Garrison he met one Sunday
evening in January at Theodore Parker's. They were at oppo-

* Governor Chase gave Brown twenty-five dollars on this occasion.

272 JOHN BROWN

site poles of thought in their methods of deaUng with slavery.
Mr. Garrison, a non-resistant, could conceive no situation in
which it was right to take up arms, — "carnal weapons," as
he often called them, — while Brown was all impatience with
men who only talked and would not shoot. The debate lasted
until late in the evening. Mr. Garrison, it has been recorded,

"saw in the famous Kansas chieftain a tall, spare, farmer-like man,
with head disproportionately small, and that inflexible mouth which
as yet no beard concealed. They discussed peace and nonresist-
ance together. Brown quoting the Old Testament against Gar-
rison's citations from the New, and Parker from time to time in-
jecting a bit of Lexington into the controversy, which attracted
a small group of interested listeners.'"

' (jVIr. Parker soon became one of five men who grouped
themselves as an informal committee to aid Brown in what-
ever attacks he might make on slavery, though Mr. Parker
was not certain that Brown's general plan for attacking the
hated institution would be successful. "I doubt," he said,
"whether things of this kind will succeed. But we shall make
a great many failures before we discover the right way of get-
ting at it. This may as well be one of them." * When the final
blow was struck, no one wrote more vigorously in Brown's
support than did Theodore Parkerf]

George Luther Stearns, a successful merchant of Boston
and an exceptionally public-spirited man, became, as he him-
self put it, "strongly impressed" with Brown's "sagacity,
courage, and strong integrity," and thereafter practically put
his purse at Brown's disposal.' He and Gerrit Smith gave to
him more liberally than any one else, as will hereafter appear,
and their homes were always open to him. It was on Sunday,
January ii, 1857, that Brown first entered the hospitable
Stearns mansion, entertaining the family at table with an
account of Black Jack, grimly humorous. 1° To Mr. Stearns
he gave his views of the Kansas chieftains, Pomeroy, Robin-
son, etc., exalting Martin F. Conway as the best of the politi-
cal leaders, but characterizing him as lacking in force. The
memory of that dinner is still kept green in the Stearns
family ; its immediate effect was a determination on Mr.
Stearns's part to do everything in his power to get Brown the
arms and money he desired.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 273

Amos A. Lawrence, who had known Brown when he was
in Springfield in the wool business, records in his diary on
January 7: "Captain Brown, the old partisan hero of Kan-
sas warfare, came to see me. I had a long talk with him. He is
a calm, temperate and pious man, but when roused he is a
dreadful foe. He appears about sixty years old." " In view
of Mr. Lawrence's complete change of opinion in regard to
Brown in later years, it is interesting to note that he about this
time characterized Brown as the "Miles Standish of Kansas."

"His severe simplicity of habits," Mr. Lawrence-continued, "his
determined energy, his heroic courage in the time of trial, all based
on a deep religious faith, make him a true representative of the
Puritanic warrior. I knew him before he went to Kansas and have
known more of him since, and should esteem the loss of his service,
from poverty, or any other cause, almost irreparable."'^

This opinion Mr. Lawrence was also willing to back with his
money. He offered to be

"one of ten, or a smaller number, to pay a thousand dollars per
annum till the admission of Kansas into the Union, for the purpose
of supporting John Brown's family and keeping the proposed com-
pany in the field."

This record of the impression made by John Brown upon
those whom he met aboutthis time would not be complete
without a quotation frony^enry D. Thoreau, in whose house
at Concord Brown saw, in March, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It was eminently characteristic of the strength of Brown's
personality, and of the vigor of his mentaHty, that he should
have made both of these men his devoted adherents. Like
Theodore Parker's, their support of him became of enormous
value in 1859, in shaping the judgment of the time upon John
Brown. In his eloquent 'Plea for Captain John Brown,'
Thoreau thus describes Brown as he found him in 1857: '^

"A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of ac-
tion; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles, —
that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or tran-
sient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that
he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remem-
ber, particularly, how, in his speech here, he referred to what his
family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to

274 JOHN BROWN

his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue.
Also, referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said,
rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keep-
ing a reserve of force and meaning, 'They had a perfect right to
be hung.' He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to
Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent
anything, but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own
resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and elo-
quence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It
was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordi-
nary king."

It must not "be forgotten, in this connection, that very little
was known in Boston at this time about the Pottawatomie
murders, and still less about John Brown's connection with
them. Frank Preston Stearns, the biographer of his father,
states that the latter never knew of John Brown's connection
with the crime," and it may well be that Theodore Parker
and others passed off the scene without a full realization of
the connection between the Harper's Ferry leader and the
tragedy of May 24, 1856. To none of these new-found friends
did Brown at this period communicate his Virginia plan.
He kept it to himself a year longer; but he did not conceal
from some of them his desire to defend Kansas by raiding
in Missouri, or by attacking slavery at some other vulnerable
point. With the general idea they were, like Theodore Parker,
in accord, but not sufficiently interested to ask for details, so
abounding was the faith in himself which the mere appear-
ance of the man created y/

Qohn Brown's first practical encouragement came on
January 7, when the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee,
of which Stearns was chairman, voluntarily voted to give
him the two hundred Sharp's rifles, together with four thou-
sand ball cartridges and thirty-one thousand percussion caps,
then in the Rev. John Todd's cellar at Tabor.'^ These arms
Brown was glad to obtain, because of their nearness to the
scene of action; he was to take possession of them as the
agent of the committee, and, more than that, was authorized
to draw on the treasurer, Mr. P. T. Jackson, for not less
than five hundred dollars for expenses. The only conditions
were that these rifles were to be held subject to the order
of the committee, and that Brown was to report from time

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 275

to time the condition of the property and the disposition
made of it, "so far as it is proper to do so." Subsequently
(April 15, 1857), Brown was authorized to sell one hundred
of these rifles to Free State settlers in Kansas for not less
than fifteen dollars each, and to apply the proceeds to relieve
the suffering inhabitants of the Territory. '« These weapons,
originally purchased by Dr. Cabot, under instructions voted
on September 10, were first intended to be "loaned to actual
settlers for defence against unlawful aggressions upon their
rights and liberties." " Afterwards, there arose a misunder-
standing as to the ownership of these arms between the State
Committee, the National Committee and the Central Com-
mittee for Kansas at Lawrence, which was finally straightened
out by the National Committee's relinquishment of all claim
to the rifles, just as the Massachusetts Committee was about
to proceed legally for their recovery.

It was at the Astor House in New York that the National
Kansas Committee met on Saturday, January 24, for the ses-
sion at which the rifles were returned to the original donors.
John Brown applied for them, but, as Horace White sub-
sequently testified, there was a good deal of opposition to
the policy of granting him arms.'* Twelve boxes of selected
clothing, sufficient for sixty persons, were given to him, but
the question of the rifles was settled by transferring them to
the Massachusetts Committee, on motion of Mr. Sanborn.
A resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for John
Brown was violently opposed by those who were against giv-
ing him the rifles ; they felt that he was too radical and violent
to be trusted with such a sum, and that he would, if given it,
disburse it in ways the Committee might not sanction. " The
Secretary of the National Committee, H. B. Hurd, recorded in
i860 that he asked Brown before the Committee: " If you get
the arms and money you desire, will you invade Missouri or
any slave territory? " To which he [Brown] replied:

"I am no adventurer. You all know me. You are acquainted
with my history. You know what I have done in Kansas. I do not
expose my plans. No one knows them but myself, except perhaps
one. I will not be interrogated ; if you wish to give me anything I
want you to give it freely. I have no other purpose but to serve
the cause of liberty."^"

276 JOHN BROWN

While the reply was not satisfactory so far as the rifles in
question were concerned, the Committee did vote five thou-
sand dollars "in aid of Capt. John Brown in any defensive
measures that may become necessary." He was authorized
to draw five hundred dollars whenever he wished it, but it is
interesting to note that he never obtained more than one
hundred and fifty dollars, and that not until the summer of
1857, the Committee having no more to give. How this
failure rankled in Brown's mind appears in his letter of April
3, 1857, to William Barnes, of Albany, who yet preserves the
original: "I am prepared to expect nothing but bad faith from
the National Kansas Committee at Chicago, as I will show
you hereafter. This is for the present confidential." In notify-
ing Brown officially, after the action of the Committee, Mr.
Hurd stated that "such arms and supplies as the Committee
may have and which may be needed by Capt. Brown" were
appropriated to his use, "provided that the arms & supplies
be not more than enough for one hundred men." 2' But this
obviously did not apply to the rifles previously returned to
Massachusetts. Under this provision, twenty-five Colt's navy
revolvers were subsequently sent to Brown at Lawrence
through Mr. W. F. M. Arny, agent of the Committee, but
they never reached Brown himself. As he did not appear to
claim them, they were loaned to the Stubbs military company.
John Brown, in explanation of his attitude, told Horace White
that he "had had so much trouble and fuss and difficulty with
the people of Lawrence, that he would never go there again
to claim anything." '^^

Immediately after the adjournment of the National Com-
mittee, Brown placed in Horace White's hands a substantial
list of articles he needed for the equipment of fifty volunteers,
and the cost thereof delivered in Lawrence or Topeka."*
Jonas Jones, of Tabor, who was in official charge of the Free
State supplies there, was ordered to retain everything in his
hands until John Brown had made his choice. By February 18,
Mr. White wrote that the articles Brown had requisitioned
would be shipped the following week, and on March 21 he
notified Brown that he would shortly go to Kansas and work
there to fit Brown out with all the supplies he was entitled to

* See Appendix for this requisition.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 277

under the New York resolution ; ^^ while in the same month,
W. F. M. Amy wrote that he had packed and sent to Jonas
Jones fourteen boxes of clothing for Brown's use.2« While
his interests were thus considerately being cared for, after the
New York meeting, Brown again went to Peterboro, by way
of Vergennes, Vermont and Rochester, to visit Gerrit Smith,
who, although contributing a thousand dollars a month to the
National Kansas Committee, was quite ready to help Brown
from time to time, and never kept account of the sums he gave
to the Kansas fighter. From Peterboro, Brown made, with
John Brown, Jr., a flying trip to his wife and family at North
Elba, whom he had not seen for a year and a half.^e But he
was in Boston again on February 16, where he wrote to
Augustus Wattles, asking for the latest Kansas news and for
Wattles's honest conviction in regard to Governor Geary."
Indeed, from now on until he finally went to Tabor, en route
to Kansas, the story of his movements is one of incessant
and restless wandering throughout New England and New
York.

On the 1 8th of February he made what was his most nota-
ble public appearance in New England — before the Joint
Committee on Federal Relations of the Massachusetts Legis-
lature. The friends of Kansas were urging upon the Legisla-
ture an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars, on the
ground that, as Mr. Sanborn assured the Legislature, "the
rights and interests of Massachusetts have suffered gross out-
rage in Kansas." No labored argument seemed to him neces-
sary, but there were witnesses to testify to what had occurred
in Kansas, among them E. B. Whitman, Martin F. Conway
and John Brown. Whitman and Brown were introduced as
having the best blood of the Mayflower in their veins and being
descendants of soldiers of the Revolution. Brown's lengthy
speech was, in substance, a story of his own experiences
(Pottawatomie omitted) and a review of the Border Ruffian
outrages upon individuals and towns, without mentioning any
of the Free State reprisals. In it he paid a tribute to Ottawa
Jones and his wife for their care of himself and his sons.

"I," he said, "with Five sick, & wounded sons, & son in law; were
obliged for some time to lie on the ground without shelter, our
Boots & clothes worn out, destitute of money, & at times almost

278 JOHN BROWN

in a state of starvation ; & dependent on the charities of the Chris-
tian Indian, & his wife whom I before named."

In the manuscript of this address, still preserved in the
Kansas Historical Society, there is the following conclusion:

"It cost the U S more than half a Million for a year past to
harrass poor Free State settlers, in Kansas, & to violate all Law,
& all right, Moral, & Constitutional, for the sole & only purpose, of
forceing Slavery uppon that Territory. I chalenge this whole nation
to prove before God or mankind to contrary. Who paid this money
to enslave the settlers of Kansas ; & worry them out? I say nothing
in this estimate of the money wasted by Congress in the manage-
ment of this horribly tyranical, & Damnable affair."

In answer to the chairman's question as to what sort of emi-
grants Kansas needed, Brown replied: "We want good men,
industrious men, men who respect themselves; who act only
from the dictates of conscience; men who fear God too much
to fear anything human, " — an interesting statement in
view of the omission of all reference to slavery.^*

Despite Brown's emphatic words and the moving story of
his own sufferings, the Massachusetts Legislature decided not
to vote anything for the Kansas cause, and so Brown turned
again to raising the money he needed for his own company.
Besides his trip to Concord, with his two nights in the Thoreau
and Emerson homes, he visited, in March, Canton, Collinsville,
Hartford and New Haven, in Connecticut, and was several
times at the Massasoit House in Springfield, where he was a
particularly welcome visitor by reason of the interest in him
of its proprietors, the Messrs. Chapin, who had notified him
in the previous September of their readiness to send him fifty
or one hundred dollars "as a testimonial of their admiration
of your brave conduct during the war." ^' At New Haven, on
March i8, he received a promise of one thousand dollars. In
and about Hartford six hundred dollars were raised for him;
and from Springfield, Brown was able to send four hundred
dollars to William H. D. Callender, of Hartford, who for some
time acted as his agent and treasurer. 5" At Canton, where
both his father and mother had grown up, Brown was gratified
by a promise to send to his family at North Elba, "Grand-
Father John Brown's old Granite Monument, about 80 years
old ; to be faced and inscribed in memory of our poor Fredk

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 279

who sleeps in Kansas," — which stone marks to-day Brown's
own grave." He also received in Canton and Collinsville the
sum of eighty dollars, after lecturing for three evenings on
Kansas affairs. About this time he obtained seventy dollars
sent through Amos A. Lawrence, as he did one hundred dol-
lars in April contributed by a friend of Mr. Stearns through
that generous patron.^^ j;^^ g^g hundred dollars voted to him
by the Massachusetts Kansas State Committee on January 7,
and a second five hundred voted on April 1 1 , Brown did not
obtain until the 19th or 20th of April, when, at Mr. G. L.
Stearns's suggestion, he drew upon the Committee through
Henry Sterns, of Springfield." To aid him in his quest. Brown
wrote and published in the Tribune and other newspapers the
following appeal for aid :

TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM

The undersigned, whose individual means were exceedingly limited
when he first engaged in the struggle for Liberty in Kansas, being
now still more destitute and no less anxious than in time past to
continue his efforts to sustain that cause, is induced to make this
earnest appeal to the friends of Freedom throughout the United
States, in the firm belief that his call will not go unheeded. I ask
all honest lovers of Liberty and Human Rights, both male and female,
to hold up my hands by contributions of pecuniary aid, either as
counties, cities, towns, villages, societies, churches or individuals.

I will endeavor to make a judicious and faithful application of all
such means as I may be supplied with. Contributions may be sent
in drafts to W. H. D. Callender, Cashier State Bank, Hartford, Ct.
It is my intention to visit as many places as I can during my stay
in the States, provided I am first informed of the disposition of the
inhabitants to aid me in my efforts, as well as to receive my visit.
Information may be communicated to me (care Massasoit House)
at Springfield, Mass. Will editors of newspapers friendly to the
cause kindly second the measure, and also give this some half dozen
insertions? Will either gentlemen or ladies, or both, who love the
cause, volunteer to take up the business? It is with no little sacrifice
of personal feeling that I appear in this manner before the public.

John Brown."

On March 19, while in New Haven, John Brown thus
turned to Amos A. Lawrence for aid in his private affairs:

The offer you so kindly made through the Telegraph some time
since emboldens me to propose the following for your consideration.

28o JOHN BROWN

For One Thousand Dollars cash I am offered an improved piece
of land which with a little improvement I now have might enable
my family consisting of a Wife & Five minor children (the youngest
not yet Three years old) to procure a Subsistence should I never
return to them ; my Wife being a good economist, & a real old fash-
ioned business woman. She has gone through the Two past winters
in our open cold house: unfinished outside; & not plastered. I have
no other income or means for their support. I have never hinted
to anyone else that I had a thought of asking for any help to provide
in any such way for my family ; & should not to you : but for your
own suggestion. I fully believe I shall get the help I need to op-
perate with West. Last Night a private meeting of some gentlemen
here; voted to raise me One Thousand Dollars in New Haven, for
that purpose. If you feel at all inclined to encourage me in the mea-
sure I have proposed I shall be grateful to get a line from you ; Care
of Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass; & will call when I come
again to Boston. I do not feel disposed to weary you with my oft
repeated visitations. I believe I am indebted to you as the unknown
giver of One Share of Emigrant aid stock; as I can think of no other
so likely to have done it. Is my appeal right ?

Very Respectfully Your Friend

John Brown.''

Mr. Lawrence at once replied that he had just sent four-
teen thousand dollars to Kansas to found the best possible
school system, and therefore was short of cash.

"But," he added, "in case anything should occur while you are
in a great and good cause to shorten your life, you may be assured
that your wife and children shall be cared for more liberally than
you now propose. The family of Captain Brown of Osawatomie
will not be turned out to starve in this country, untill Liberty her-
self is driven out."'°

Later, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Stearns both agreed to this
proposal, but this thousand dollars was as slow to appear as
that promised at New Haven. It was, however, finally raised
(unlike the New Haven sum) and applied to the purchase of
the land. The list of contributors to this fund and their gifts
runs as follows:

Wm. R. Lawrence, Boston $50

Amos A. Lawrence, " 310

Geo. L. Stearns, " 260

John E. Lodge, " 25

J. Carter Brown, Providence, R. 1 100

J. M. S. Williams, Boston 50

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 281

W. D. Pickman, Salem 50

R. P. Waters, " 10

S. E. Peabody, " 10

John H. Silsbee, " lO

B. H. Silsbee, " 5

Cash, 10

Wendell Phillips, Boston 25

W. I. Rotch, New Bedford 10

John Bertram, Salem 75

$1000"

This was not brought together until Brown had found it
necessary to write, on May 13, the day he left for the West:
" I must ask to have the $1000 made up at once; & forwarded
to Gerrit Smith. I did not start the measure of getting up
any subscription for me; (although I was sufifiiciently needy
as God knows) ; nor had I thought oi further burdening either
oi ray A&a.r ir'iends Stearns, or Lawrence. . . ."'' The reason
for this urgency was that he had committed himself for the
purchase of the land to the brothers Thompson. Even then
the transaction dragged on until late in August, when Mr.
Sanborn visited North Elba and put it through.''

From the 21st to the 26th of March, except for a hasty trip
to Springfield, Brown was in Worcester, part of the time as
a guest of Eli Thayer. On the 23d he spoke at an anti-slavery
meeting, and on the 25th he lectured in the City Hall, on
Kansas. On these and other occasions he relied largely upon
the address he had given before the Committee of the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, to which he had appended the following
statement of his own plans when in Connecticut : "

"I am trying to raise from $20, to 25,000 Dollars in the Free
States to enable me to continue my efforts in the cause of Freedom.
Will the people of Connecticut my native State afford me some aid
in this undertaking? ... I was told that the newspapers in a cer-
tain City were dressed in mourning on hearing that I was killed &
scalped in Kansas. . . . Much good it did me. In the same place
I met a more cool reception than in any other place where I have
stoped. If my friends will hold up my hands while I live: I will
freely absolve them from any expence over me when I am dead. ..."

Dr. Francis Wayland, who heard him at Worcester, was
not inspired by his oratorical powers. "It is one of the cu-

282 JOHN BROWN

rious facts," he wrote, " that many men who do it are utterly
unable to tell about it. John Brown, a flame of fire in action,
was dull in speech." *' Emerson, on the other hand, in re-
cording in his diary Brown's speech at Concord, said he gave,

"a good account of himself in the Town Hall last night to a meet-
ing of citizens. One of his good points was the folly of the peace
party in Kansas, who believed that their strength lay in the great-
ness of their wrongs, and so discountenanced resistance. He wished
to know if their wrong was greater than the negro's, and what
kind of strength that gave to the negro." ^

Later, Emerson wrote this tribute to Brown's powers as a
speaker :

"For himself, he is so transparent that all men see him through.
He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and integ-
rity are esteemed, the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no by-
ends of his own. Many of you have seen him, and everyone who has
heard him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless
goodness joined with his sublime courage." *^

The iinancial results of the Worcester meetings were slim.
But Eli Thayer gave him five hundred dollars' worth of
weapons — a cannon and a rifle — while Ethan Allen and
Company also contributed a rifle. ^^ March ended for Brown
with a flying trip to Easton, Pennsylvania, in company with
Frank Sanborn and Martin Conway, as representatives of
the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, in a fruitless effort to
induce ex-Governor Reeder to return to Kansas and assume
the leadership of the Free State party.*^ But Mr. Reeder
was too happily situated at Easton ; he was, however, so heart-
ily in sympathy with Brown's plan that the latter wrote
to him for aid on his return to Springfield, explaining that
the only difference between them was as to the number of
men needed, and hoping that Mr. Reeder would soon dis-
cern the necessity of "going out to Kansas this spring."" It
was on this visit to the Massasoit House that Brown found
a letter from his wife telling him of his sons' decision to fight
no more. To this he replied on March 31:

"I have only to say as regards the resolution of the boys to 'learn
and practice war no more,' that it was not at my solicitation that
they engaged in it at the first — that while I may perhaps feel no

ly^^Jrr^ L/PH>-o^YiJ

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 283

more love of the business than they do, still I think there may
be possibly in their day that which is more to be dreaded, if such
things do not now exist.""

His financial progress to the end of March by no means
satisfied Brown. On the 3d of April he wrote thus despond-
ently to William Barnes, of Albany:

"I expect soon to return West; & to go back without securing
even an outfit. I go with a sad heart having failed to secure even
the means of equiping; to say nothing of feeding men. I had when
I returned no more that I could peril ; & could make no further sac-
rifice, except to go about in the attitude of a beggar: & that I have
done, humiliating as it is."

The winter was slipping away rapidly; spring was at hand.
He was impatient to return to Kansas, and his benefac-
tors expected him to be there in the spring in time for any
fresh aggression by the Border Ruffians. But his travelling
expenses were not light, and there were two matters that
rapidly reduced his cash resources, especially during the
month of April. On the occasion of Brown's first visit to
Collinsville, about the beginning of March, he met, among
others, Charles Blair, a blacksmith and forge-master, who
attended Brown's lecture on Kansas and heard his appeal
for funds. The next morning he saw Brown in the village
drug-store, where, to a group of interested citizens, the Cap-
tain was exhibiting some weapons which were part of the
property taken from Pate and not returned to him. Mr.
Blair testified in 1859: ^^

"Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight
inches long, and he [Brown] remarked that if he had a lot of those
things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a cap-
ital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas to keep in their log
cabins to defend themselves against any sudden attack that might
be made on them. He turned to me, knowing, I suppose, that I was
engaged in edge-tool making, and asked me what I would make
them for; what it would cost to make five hundred or one thousand
of those things, as he described them. I replied, without much con-
sideration, that I would make him five hundred of them for a dollar
and a quarter apiece; or if he wanted a thousand of them, I thought
they might be made for a dollar apiece. I did not wish to commit
myself then and there without further investigation. ... He sim-

284 JOHN BROWN'

ply remarked that he would want them made. I thought no more
about it until a few days afterwards. . . . The result was that I
made a contract with him."

This document was not signed until March 30, ten days
after Blair had shipped one dozen spears as samples to the
Massasoit House. This was the genesis of the Harper's Ferry
pikes, for the weapons Brown contracted for were never
delivered until 1859, — long after any Kansas need for them
had disappeared.

The reason for this delay is not to be explained, as some
have thought, by the theory that Brown from the first in-
tended to use the spears elsewhere than in Kansas. There
is evidence, besides his statements and letters to Blair, that
he really thought these weapons would be of value even to
the Free State women of the embattled Territory. Un-
doubtedly, Brown looked forward to a further attack upon
slavery after the Kansas battle was won. The fate of Kansas
appealed to him only in so far as it involved an aggressive
attack upon slavery. He did not, so Mr. Sanborn testifies,
reveal his Virginia plans, which were always in the back of
his head, to any of his new Massachusetts friends until 1858.
But in view of his long-cherished scheme for a direct assault
upon slavery, and his confidences at this time to Hugh Forbes,
there can be no question that, in asking for far more arms
than could be used by a hundred or even two hundred men,
his mind was fixed upon further use for them after the Bor-
der Ruffians had ceased from troubling. Kansas was to be
a prologue to the real drama ; the properties of the one were
to serve in the other. Had Brown obtained the money he
needed to pay for the pikes, he would surely have received
them in July, 1857, on the 1st of which the delivery was to
be made. But Brown was not able to make the first payment
of five hundred dollars within ten days, as required by the
contract. Instead, he sent only three hundred and fifty dol-
lars, and did not make his next payment of two hundred
dollars until April 25.

Blair was a canny Yankee. While he bought all the mate-
rial needed — the handles were of ash and the spearheads
strong malleable iron, two inches wide and about eight inches
long, with a screw and ferrules to connect the blade to the

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 285

handle or shank — and did some work on the contract, he
stopped when he had done enough work to have earned the
five hundred and fifty dollars. The handles were laid aside
in bundles to season, and the iron work carefully preserved
until such time as Brown should give further orders and sup-
ply additional funds. It was not until he received a letter
dated February 10, 1858, that Blair again heard from his
Kansas friend, and, with the exception of another letter,
written on March 11, 1858, nothing further happened until
Brown unexpectedly appeared at Blair's door on June 3,
1859, and took the necessary steps to have the pikes com-
pleted without loss of time. Then, certainly, it was Brown's
idea to place these weapons in the hands of slaves, in order
that, unaccustomed as they were to firearms, they might
with them fight their way to liberty.

Brown's second investment at this period cost him still
more money than the pikes, and resulted in little or no benefit
and some very considerable injury to his long-cherished plan
of carrying the "war into Africa," of making the institu-
tion of slavery insecure by a direct attack upon it. On one
of his trips to New York he met, late in March, through
the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, of the New York Independent, one
Hugh Forbes, a suave adventurer of considerable ability, who
habitually called himself colonel, because of military service
in Italy under Garibaldi, in the unsuccessful revolution of
1848-49.^' Forbes was typical of the human flotsam and
jetsam washed up by every revolutionary movement. A
silk merchant for a time in Sienna, he was perpetually needy
after his arrival in New York, about 1855, living by his tal-
ents as a teacher of fencing, and by doing odd jobs on the
Tribune as translator or reporter. About forty-five years
of age, he was a good linguist and had acquired in Italy
some knowledge of military campaigning, — quite enough to
impress John Brown, who believed he had found in Forbes
precisely the expert lieutenant he needed, not only for the
coming Kansas undertaking, but for the more distant raid
upon Virginia. Vain, obstinate, unstable and greatly lacking
funds, as Forbes was, Brown's projects appealed mightily
to him ; he speedily saw himself in fancy the Garibaldi of
a revolution against slavery. John Brown, the reticent and

286 JOHN BROWN

self-contained, unbosomed himself to this man as he had
not to the Massachusetts friends who were advancing the
money upon which he lived and plotted. The result was
Forbes's engagement as instructor, at one hundred dollars
a month, of the proposed "volunteer-regular" company, to
operate first in Kansas and later in Virginia, into which
undertaking Forbes entered the more willingly as he learned
of the wealthy New England men who were backing Brown.

For Brown this was an unhappy alliance; dissimilar in
character, training and antecedents, and alike only in their
insistence on leadership, mutual disappointment and dissat-
isfaction were the only possible outcome of the association
of the two men. Forbes, as will be seen later, became the
evil genius of the Brown enterprise. First of all, he absorbed
money, when Brown had none too much for his own imme-
diate needs and the first payments to Blair for the pikes.
Forbes was authorized by Brown, early in April, to draw
upon Mr. Callender, of Hartford, for six hundred dollars,
and he did so within the month. But he showed so little
inclination to follow Brown westward that the latter soon
became suspicious.

Forbes had several excuses for delaying. It had been
agreed that he should translate and condense a foreign man-
ual of guerrilla warfare; this he did under the title of 'Man-
ual of the Patriotic Volunteer.' This work dragged inter-
minably; on June I, Joseph Bryant, a New York friend of
Brown's, who acted for him, reported, after a call on Forbes,
that the latter was content with his progress and certain that
he was losing no time. On June i6, Forbes assured Bryant
that the book would be ready in ten days; that he was not
ready to join Brown; indeed, he now had doubts whether
any help would be needed in Kansas until winter. This
report so alarmed Brown that on June 22 he sent to Forbes,
through Bryant, a demand for the immediate repayment of
the six hundred dollars, or as much of it as he might have
drawn through Callender. Bryant at once took the order
to Forbes, but becoming convinced that "the colonel" was
acting in good faith, and that much of the money had al-
ready been spent, did not show it to the budding author,
who was now certain of finishing his book "in about a week."

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 287

To that volume, however, Forbes had not devoted all his
energies, for he had spent considerable time in endeavoring
to raise more money with which to bring his family over
from Paris, where they were eking out a precarious exist-
ence. Of Brown's six hundred dollars the family had received
one hundred and twenty dollars ; sums amounting to seven
hundred dollars Forbes obtained from Horace Greeley and
other friends of Free Kansas, according to a statement of
Mr. Greeley in the Tribune for October 24, 1859. What
became of these funds is not known, but by June 25 Forbes
had given up his idea of bringing his family over, and had
decided to send to Paris the daughter who was in New York,
that she might be with her mother. Finally, Forbes drifted
westward, arriving at Tabor on August 9, two days after
Brown's appearance at the same place. He had stopped at
Gerrit Smith's at Peterboro on his way out, and success-
fully appealed to the purse of that ever generous man, who
had "helped" John Brown to a "considerable sum" ($350)
when they parted in Chicago on June 22. Nevertheless,
Forbes obtained one hundred and fifty dollars, of which he
sent all but twenty dollars back to New York toward the
cost of printing his book. Gerrit Smith "trusted," so he
wrote to Thaddeus Hyatt, that Forbes would "prove very
useful to our sacred work in Kansas." "We must," he added,
"not shrink from fighting for Liberty — & if Federal troops
fight against her, we must fight against them." 6"

Aside from his negotiations with Forbes, and with Mr.
Blair for the pikes, April was for Brown another month of
active solicitation of funds, but with even more disappoint-
ing results, complicated by the news, received from his son
Jason, that a deputy United States marshal had passed
through Cleveland, bound East to arrest him for some of his
Kansas transactions." He wrote on the i6th, from Spring-
field, to Eli Thayer that:

"One of U S Hounds is on my trackr& I have kept myself hid
for a few days to let my track get cold. I have no idea of being
taken ; & intend {if ' God will ';) to go back with Irons in rather than
uppon my hands. ... I got a fine lift in Boston the other day;
& hope Worcester will not be entirely behind. I do not mean you;
or Mr. Allen, & Co.'"''

288 JOHN BROWN

This keeping himself hid had reference to his stay with
Judge and Mrs. Russell in Boston for a week, during which
time Mrs. Russell allowed no one but herself to open the
front door, lest the "US Hounds " appear. The Russell house
was chosen because it was in a retired street, and Judge
Russell himself was never conspicuous in the Abolitionist
ranks, in order that he might be the more serviceable to
the cause in quiet ways. Mrs. Russell remembers to this
day Brown's sense of humor and his keen appreciation of
the negro use of long words and their grandiloquence. She
recalls, too, that he frequently barricaded his bedroom, told
her of his determination not to be taken alive, and added,
"I should hate to spoil your carpet."*'
/It was while staying with the Russells that he came down-
/stairs one day with a written document which voiced his
bitter disappointment at his non-success in obtaining the
funds he needed. He read it aloud, as follows:

"Old Browns Farewell: to the Plymouth Rocks; Bunker Hill,
Monuments; Charter Oaks; and Uncle Toms, Cabbins.

"Has left for Kansas. Was trying since he came out of the ter-
ritory to secure an outfit; or in other words the means of arming and
equiping thoroughly ; his regular minuet men: who are mixed up mth
the people of Kansas : and he leaves the States; with a deep feeling
OF sadness: that after having exhausted his own small means: and
with h.v& family and his brave men : suffered hunger, nakedness, cold,
sickness, (and some [of] them) imprisonment, with most barbarous,
and cruel treatment: wounds, and death: that after lying on the
ground for Months; in the most unwholesome awfi sickly; as well
as uncomfortable places: with sick and wounded destitute of any
shelter a part of the time; dependent {in part) on the care, and
hospitality of the Indians : and hunted like Wolves : that after ail
this; in order to sustain a cause, which every Citizen of this 'Glorious
Republic,' is under equal Moral obligation to do: {and for the neglect
of which HE WILL be held accountable to god:) in which every Man,
Woman, and Child of the entire human family; has a deep and awful
interest : that when no wages are asked, or expected : he canot secure
(amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this 'Heaven,
exalted ' people ;) even the necessary supplies, for a common soldier.

' How ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN ? '

\ John Brown."

I \,' Boston, April, 1857."

For one encouraging happening about this time, John
Brown was again indebted to the generosity of Mr. Stearns.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 289

He had set his heart on receiving two hundred revolvers, in
addition to the twenty-five donated by the National Kansas
Committee, and through Mr. Thayer he had made inquiry
as to the prices of several manufacturers. Finally, he received
a low bid of thirteen hundred dollars for two hundred re-
volvers from the Massachusetts Arms Company, through its
agent, T. W. Carter, at Chicopee Falls, who stated that the
low price — fifty per cent of the usual charge — was due
solely to the company's generous purpose "of aiding in your
project of protecting the free state settlers of Kansas and
securing their rights to the institutions of free America.'" '^
John Brown at once reported this offer to Mr. Stearns, saying:
"Now if Rev T Parker, & other good people of Boston, would
make up that amount; I might at least be well armed." ^^ Mr.
Stearns immediately notified Mr. Carter that he would pur-
chase the revolvers and pay for them by his note at four
months from date of delivery, as this would give him time to
raise the money by subscription if he desired to. The company
accepted the proposition, and shipped the revolvers on May 25
to "J. B. care Dr. Jesse Bowen, Iowa City, Iowa," with the
company's hope " that there may be no occasion for their ser-
vice in securing rights which ought to be guaranteed by the
principles of justice and equity." As if he had a little doubt
about their ultimate use, Mr. Carter added: "We have no fear
that they will be put to service in your hands for other pur-
poses." In notifying Brown that his offer had been accepted,
Mr. Stearns significantly remarked, "I think you ought to go
to Kansas as soon as possible and give Robinson and the rest
some Backbone." For himself, Mr. Stearns asked only that,
if he paid for these revolvers, all the arms, ammunition, rifles,
as well as the revolvers not used for the defence of Kansas,
be held as pledged to him for the payment of the thirteen hun-
dred dollars. The Massachusetts Kansas Committee by formal
vote assented to this suggestion.

By April 23, Brown's hopes of further aid had vanished.
On that day he wrote to his family from New Haven, asking
that they have "some of the friends" drive at once to West-
port and Elizabeth town to meet him." But he was in Spring-
field on the 25th, and on the 28th, owing to an attack of fever
and ague, he had only just reached Albany on his way to North

290 JOHN BROWN

Elba, where he remained about two weeks with his family,
before leaving for Iowa by way of Vergennes, Vermont. From
this place he wrote on May 13 to George L. Stearns, "I leave
here for the West today," ^* without the slightest idea that it
would take him three months to reach the rendezvous in
Tabor. He had not, however, during the months before his
departure, lost his interest in Kansas or failed to keep in direct
touch with the situation there. Augustus Wattles and James
H. Holmes had corresponded with him, and to the former
Brown had written, on April 8, the following letter, which not
only records clearly the spirit in which he again set his face
toward Kansas, but is of special interest because it appears
to be the first one to which he signed the nom-de-plume
"Nelson Hawkins," that later appears so frequently in his
correspondence :

Boston, Massachusetts April 8, 1857.
My Dear Sir: Your favor of the 15th March, and that of friend
H. of the 1 6th, I have just received. I cannot express my gratitude
for them both. They gi^ me just the kind of news I was most oj all
things anxious to hear /I bless God that he has not left the free-State
men of Kansas to pollute themselves by the foul and loathesome em-
brace of the old rotten whore. I have been trembling all along lest
they might back down from the high and holy ground they had taken.
I say, in view of the wisdom, firmness, and patience of my friends
and fellow-sufferers, (in the cause of humanity,) let God's name be
eternally praised 1 I would most gladly give my hand to all whose
" garments are not defiled ; " and I humbly trust that I shall soon
again have opportunity to rejoice (or suEer further if need be) with
you, in the strife between Heaven and Hell. I wish to send my most
cordial and earnest salutation to every one of the chosen. /My efforts
this way have not been altogether fruitless. I wish you and friend
H. both to accept this for the moment; may write soon again, and
hope to hear from you both at Tabor, Fremont County, Iowa —
Care of Jonas Jones, Esq.

Your sincere friend,

Nelson Hawkins."
Augustus Wattles, Esq.

Lawrence, Kansas Territory.

At least one member of Brown's family was disturbed at
the father's return to Kansas. John Brown, Jr., wrote to him
thus: " It seems as though if you return to Kansas this Spring
I should never see you again. But I will not look on the dark

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 291

side. You have gone safely through a thousand perils and
hairbreadth escapes." ^ It was more than a mere undefined
dread that worried the son. His views as to the political situa-
tion in Kansas are set forth in this letter with noteworthy
ability. The just announced return of James H. Lane to the
Territory would give an opportunity to see if the United
States authorities there were still bent on arresting the Free
Soil leaders, and whether the Free Soilers would unresistingly
submit to such a happening. He also felt that, in view of the
renewed hostilities which he believed were at hand, it would
be well for his father to delay his entrance into Kansas, and
thus,

"place it out of the power of Croakers to say that the 'peace' had
been broken only in consequence of the advent there of such dis-
turbers as 'Jim Lane' and 'Old Brown.' And further, when war
begins, if the people there take the right ground, you could raise and
take in with you a force which might in truth become a 'liberating
army,' when they most stood in need of help."

John Brown, Jr., then admitted that he feared that the
Kansans, for whom his father was ready to peril his life, would,
out of their slavish regard for Federal authority, be ready to
"hand you over to the tormentor." The extent to which he
was in his father's confidence, and the way in which both their
minds were working upon the great post-Kansas project,
appears clearly from a question in this same letter: "Do you
not intend to visit Canada before long? That school can be
established there, if not elsewhere."

However much he may have taken his son's warnings to

heart, John Brown left for Kansas master of considerable sup-

! plies. On May 18, Mr. Stearns estimated that the contri-

; butions of arms, clothing, etc., of which Brown had entire

i, control, were worth $13,000." A careful count of the sums he

is known to have received after January i shows that they

aggregated $2363, exclusive of the $1000 raised by Lawrence

and Stearns for the purchase of the North Elba land. Out of

this sum had come travelling expenses, some provision for his

family, the $550 paid for the pikes, and the $600 absorbed

by Forbes. To it must be added the $350 given to him in

Chicago on June 22 by Gerrit Smith. The total sum he raised

292 JOHN BROWN

was, of course, larger than this; he obtained, for instance,
some small gifts in Chicago. One large credit he did not use.
In his enthusiasm for the cause, his admiration of the man
and his complete confidence in Brown's "courage, prudence
and good judgment," Stearns gave his Kansas friend authority
to draw upon him for I7000, as it was needed, to subsist the
one hundred "volunteer-regulars," provided that it became
necessary to call that number into active service in Kansas in
1857.*^ This emergency not occurring. Brown returned the
credit untouched. Mr. Stearns, be it noted, testified in 1859
that, in addition to everything else, he had from time to time
given Brown money of which he never kept any record.
Counting the credit of $7000, the supplies worth $13,000, and
estimating the other cash contributions at only $3000, it ap-
pears that Brown was successful in raising $23,000 toward his
project of putting a company into the field. But his inability
to use the ^7000 en route, and his long delay in reaching Tabor,
together with necessary expenditures for horses and wagons
and wages, reduced him soon to distress. When he arrived at
his base of action. Tabor, he had only twenty- five dollars left."
Various causes contributed to Brown's delay. He was at
Canastota on May 14, at Peterboro on May 18, reached
Cleveland on May 22, and Akron the next day. On May 27
he wrote from Hudson that he was "still troubled with the
ague" and was " much confused in mind." If he should never
return, he wished that "no other monument be used to keep
me in remembrance than the same plain old one that records
the death of my Grandfather & Son & that a short story like
those already on it be told of John Brown the 5th under that
of Grandfather." ** He added that he was already very short
of expense money, and that he did not expect to leave for four
or five days. On June 3, while still at Hudson, he wrote thus
to Augustus Wattles, over the name of "James Smith:"

My Dear Sir : I write to say that I started for Kansas some three
weeks or more since, but have been obliged to stop for the fever
and ague. I am now righting up, and expect to be on my way again
soon. Free-State men need have no fear of my desertion. There
are some half dozen men I want a visit from at Tabor, Iowa, to
come off in the most QUIET WAY, viz: Daniel Foster, late of Bos-
ton Massachusetts; Holmes, Frazee, a Mr. Hill and William David,

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 293

on Little Ottawa creek; a Mr. Cochran, on Pottawatomie creek;
or I would like equally well to see Dr. Updegraff and 5. H. Wright,
of Ossawatomie; or William Phillips, or CONWAY, or your honor.
I have some very important matters to confer with some of you
about. Let there be no words about it. Should any of you come out to
see me wait at Tabor if you get th&re first. Mr. Adair, at Ossawato-
mie, may supply ($50,) fifty dollars, (if need be), for expenses on
my account on presentation of this. Write me at Tabor, Iowa, Fre-
mont County."^

On the 9th of June, Brown wrote to William A. Phillips in a
similar strain, to which Phillips replied from Lawrence on June
24, «^ saying that neither he nor Holmes nor others whom he
had seen could go to Tabor, that there was then no necessity
for military measures, and that the arms were safer with Brown
than with any one else. If he came into Kansas, he would be
protected. Wattles's reply was similarly discouraging, bring-
ing the oracular advice: "Come as quickly as possible, or
not come at present, as you choose."" Frazee (the teamster
who had taken Brown out of Kansas in the previous fall) had
not returned; Foster, Mr. Wattles did not know; Holmes was
ploughing at Emporia, and Conway and Phillips were talking
politics. Meanwhile, Brown had visited Milwaukee on June
16, for what specific purpose is not known; he had tried to
induce Forbes to meet him in Cleveland on June 17,^* and
then went to Chicago to meet Gerrit Smith. On June 24 he
attended at Tallmadge, Ohio, the semi-centennial of the
founding of that town. The address was delivered by the Rev.
Leonard Bacon. At its close, a message came to the speaker
that John Brown was present and would like to speak about
Kansas. Mr. Bacon sent back word to Brown that any such
address would be "entirely inconsistent with the character of
the occasion," — a happening which inspired Mr. Bacon to
write to Governor Wise, after Brown's capture, that it was to
many at Tallmadge proof of Brown's evident derangement on
the slavery question. «' Brown's pocket memorandum-book, a
rough diary from January 12, 1857, on, contains this entry
on June 29, also showing that he had returned to Ohio from
Chicago: "June 29th Wrote Joseph Bryant Col Forbes, and D
Lee Child; all that I leave here Cleveland this day for Tabor,
Iowa; & advise Forbes, & Child, to call on Jonas Jones."

By July 6 the memorandum-book records Brown's pre-

294 JOHN BROWN

sence in Iowa City. Here he received word from Richard
Realf , for some time to come one of his followers, and after-
wards well known as a poet of no mean ability, that he was
awaiting him at Tabor with one hundred and ten dollars
— the hundred and fifty of National Kansas Committee
money, minus Realf's expenses. This money had been sent
to Brown on June 30 by Edmund B. Whitman, the Commit-
tee's agent in Lawrence, in response to an urgent appeal from
Brown, to whom Realf wrote also the good news that, as the
government had entered a nolle prosequi in the case of the
Free State prisoners. Brown need be under "no apprehension
of insecurity to yourself or the munitions you may bring with
you." ™ By July 17, Brown had only reached Wassonville,
Iowa. He had had to obtain two teams and two wagons at
a cost of seven hundred and eighty-six dollars, and to hire a
teamster (his third son, Owen, who had been at Tabor for a
time). He had had to "rig up and load" the teams, and in
consequence of an injury to a horse, he had lost ten days on
the road. In order to make their scant funds hold out, "and to
avoid notice," he and his son "lived exclusively on herring,
soda crackers, and sweetened water for more than three weeks
(sleeping every night in our wagons), except that twice we got
a little milk and a few times some boiled eggs." " At last, on
August 7, he and his son reached their old quarters in Tabor,
the home of Jonas Jones.

By this time it was perfectly apparent that there was to be
no bloodshed in Kansas that summer. There was another new
Governor in the Territory, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi,
who had succeeded Governor Geary after that official's resig-
nation in March, because of the failure of the pro-slavery
Pierce administration to give him proper support. So fair an
historian as Mr. Rhodes has declared that Geary was an ideal
Governor,^^ and a study of his brief administration of Kansas
inevitably leads to the conclusion that, whatever his faults,
he strove earnestly to be judicial and honorable, and to bring
peace and justice to Kansas. Like Reeder, Geary was a firm
Democrat, and like him he left Kansas convinced of the right-
eousness of the Free State cause. Walker, his successor, had
been Senator from Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury, had
practically framed the tariff act of 1846, and was, therefore.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 295

well known to the country as a politician of more than usual
ability and standing. He was reluctant to go to Kansas, where
he arrived on May 26, having obtained before his depar-
ture the consent of the new President, Buchanan, that any Con-
stitution for the State of Kansas which might be framed
should be submitted to the people. His appointment in itself
helped to avert any outbreaks, since the Southerners felt sure
— too sure — that he was one of their own. As soon as it
was apparent that he and his able secretary of state, Fred-
erick P. Stanton, were bent on seeing justice done, the pro-
slavery forces, and President Buchanan as well, turned against
them, with the result that Secretary Stanton was removed
from office, and Governor Walker resigned, in the following
December. Walker, the fourth governor since October 6,
1854, exceeded by only thirty days Governor Geary's brief stay
of six months.'^

As a whole, however, the outlook for freedom in Kansas
was comparatively favorable when John Brown reached
Tabor. The Lecompton conspiracy, by which a pro-slavery
Constitution was to be forced on Kansas by a trick, had not
yet developed ; and while there had been sporadic cases of law-
lessness in certain counties, and James T. Lyle, a pro-slavery
city recorder of Leavenworth, had been killed by William
Haller, a Free State man, in an affray at the polls, the year
1857 was, on the whole, one of quiet and progress for the bona
fide settlers of Kansas. Free Soilers were pouring into the
State in large force, and the number of slaves remained so small
that both sides realized the growing ascendency of the Free
Soil cause. The Topeka, or Free State, Legislature had met on
January 6, 7 and 8, when a dozen of its members had been
arrested and taken to Tecumseh ; it met again in Topeka on
June 13, without interference from Governor Walker, and ad-
journed four days later after passing some excellent measures.
About this time, there was a Free State convention in Topeka,
presided over by General Lane, which endorsed the Topeka
movement, urged Free State men not to participate in the
15th of June election of delegates to the Lecompton Con-
stitutional convention, and declared the Territorial laws to
be without force. A similar Free State convention met in
Topeka on July 15 and 16, with James H. Lane again presid- ,

296 JOHN BROWN

ing and Governor Robinson as one of the speakers. It called
a mass convention for August 26, at Grasshopper Falls, urged
upon the Governor the propriety of submitting the Topeka
Constitution to the people, and made nominations for the of-
fices to be filled at the coming Free State election on August
9. Meanwhile, in accordance with what afterwards seemed a
gravely mistaken decision of the Topeka convention of June
9, the Free State men had declined to participate in the elec-
tion of June 15 for delegates to the Constitutional convention.
Only twenty-two hundred pro-slavery votes were cast in all,
which showed that the Free State men could easily have out-
voted their enemies, as was clearly proved when more than
seventy-two hundred anti-slavery votes were cast at the Free
State election of August 9. It was then too late ; the Lecompton
Constitutional convention was in the hands of the pro-slavery
men, headed by the Surveyor-General, John Calhoun, a bitter
and unscrupulous slavery champion. They agreed upon a Con-
stitution which had been carefully prepared by the Southern
leaders in Washington, and lent themselves readily to the
plan to get slavery into Kansas without the consent of the
majority of its bona fide inhabitants.

The Free State election of August 9 was held two days
after Brown's arrival at Tabor. The heavy vote cast was
fresh proof of the ascendency of the party of peace among
the Free State men. The Grasshopper Falls convention
also showed, by its decision to participate in the election
of October 5 for Territorial delegate, that the drift was
toward working out a Kansas victory by resort to the time-
honored American method of correcting abuses — the bal-
lot-box. Governor Walker guaranteed a fair election, and
lived up to his promise by setting aside fraudulent returns.
Robinson and Lane favored taking part in the election, Con-
way, Phillips and Redpath, three of Brown's staunchest
friends, opposing. Altogether, Brown found that nothing had
been lost by the long delay in his arrival near the scene of
action; there was not the slightest need for his "volunteer-
regulars;" the only time Governor Walker had ordered out
the United States troops was when dissatisfied with the
holding of an independent city election at Lawrence on
July 13. This course the Governor denounced as certain

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 297

to mean treason and bring on "all the horrors of civil war,"
if persisted in. His prompt action discouraged the radicals
under Lane, who thereupon was the more ready for a dif-
ferent course. Rifles the Free State men had at this moment
no need of or desire for. As to becoming a political leader
and putting the stiffening into Robinson's backbone, for
which Mr. Stearns and others hoped, that was a line of ac-
tion not to Brown's taste, and the defeat of his friends in the
Grasshopper Falls convention must have added to his dis-
satisfaction with Kansas conditions. It is not, therefore, sur-
prising if his mind turned more and more to the coming raid
against slavery along a more timid and more vulnerable
frontier than that of Missouri.

The day after his arrival at Tabor, John Brown wrote to
Mr. Stearns of his various disappointments, hindrances
and lack of means; these and ill-health had depressed him
greatly. Two days later he wrote again and in better spir-
its.''' He was "in immediate want of from Five Hundred to
One Thousand Dollars for secret service & no questions asked."
"Rather interesting times" were expected in Kansas, he
wrote, "but no great excitement is reported." "Our next
advices," he continued, "may entirely change the aspect of
things. I hope the friends of Freedom will respond to my
call: & 'prove me now herewith.'" He had "learned with
gratitude" what had been done to render his wife and chil-
dren comfortable by the purchase of the Thompson farm.
Then, as the result of Forbes's arrival, he forwarded to Mr.
Stearns "the first number of a series of Tracts lately gotten
up here," of which Forbes, and not Brown, was the author.
It is entitled 'The Duty of the Soldier,' and is headed, in
small type, "Presented with respectful and kind feelings
to the Officers and Soldiers of the United States Army in
Kansas," the object being to win them from their allegiance
to their colors and induce them to support the Free State
cause. This it does indirectly by asking whether the "sol-
diery of a Republic" should be "vile living machines and
thus sustain Wrong against Right." There are but three
printed pages of rambling and discursive discussion of the
soldiery of the ancient republics, and of the princes of an-
tiquity, and a consideration of authority, legitimate and

298 JOHN BROWN

illegitimate — as ill-fitted as possible an appeal to the regu-
lar soldier of 1857. To the copy which he sent to Augustus
Wattles, Brown appended the following in his own hand-
writing, as a "closing remark:"

It is as much the duty of the common soldier of the U S Army
according to his ability and opportunity, to be informed upon all
subjects in any way affecting the political or general welfare of his
country: & to watch with jealous vigilance, the course, & man-
agement of all public functionaries both civil and military: and to
govern his actions as a citizen Soldier accordingly : as though he were
President of the United States.

Respectfully yours, A Soldier."

Other copies John Brown sent to Sanborn, Theodore
Parker and Governor Chase, of Ohio," asking each for his
frank opinion of the tract and also for aid in raising the
five hundred to one thousand dollars he needed so sorely.
Sanborn, and probably Parker, wrote his disapproval of
Forbes's attempt to seduce the soldiery of the Union; and
only Gerrit Smith, to whom Forbes himself sent a copy with
an appeal for help for his family in Paris, seems to have been
pleased with it. He thought it "very well written," and
added, "Forbes will make himself very useful to our Kan-
sas work." For the Forbes family he subscribed twenty-five
dollars, and urged Thaddeus Hyatt to raise some money in
New York for this purpose and forward it to Sanborn "as
soon as you can." "

But Forbes's usefulness to Brown was not of long dura-
tion; by November 2 he was on his way back to the East
from Nebraska City.'^ He had found no one at Tabor to
drill save his employer and one son, Owen; and no funds
save sixty dollars, which Brown gave to him (doubtless out
of the National Kansas Committee's one hundred and ten)
toward his expenses.''' Rifle-shooting at a target on the out-
skirts of Tabor was their out-door drill, while in-doors they
studied Forbes's 'Manual of the Patriotic Volunteer,' and
discussed military tactics and their respective plans in re-
gard to the raid into Virginia.*"

One of those who met John Brown at this time, the Rev.
H. D. King, now of Kinsman, Ohio, records thus his recol-
lections of some of their table talk:"

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 299

"I tried to get at his theology. It was a subject naturally sug-
gested by my daily work. But I never could force him down to dry
sober talk on what he thought of the moral features of things in
general. He would not express himself on little diversions from the
common right for the accomplishment of a greater good. For him
there was only one wrong, and that was slavery. He was rather
skeptical, I think. Not an infidel, but not bound by creeds. He was
somewhat cranky on the subject of the Bible, as he was on that of
killing people. He believed in God and Humanity, but his attitude
seemed to be : ' We don't know anything about some things. We do
not know about the humanity matter. If any great obstacle stand in
the way, you may properly break all the Decalogue to get rid of it.' "

"We are beginning to take lessons & have (we think) a very
capable Teacher. Should no disturbance occour: we may pos-
sibly think best to work back eastward. Cannot determine yet,"
wrote Brown to his wife and children on August 17.''' But
this life at Tabor soon palled on Forbes, particularly as there
was a sharp disagreement between Brown and himself as to
the future campaign, and increasing evidence that there was
to be no active service in Kansas that year. The needs of
his family weighed heavily upon him, and a growing sense
of wrong done him by the Massachusetts friends of Brown,
whom Forbes dubbed "The Humanitarians," in not supply-
ing the salary Brown had promised, led to bitter denunciations
of them soon after Forbes arrived in the East.

Jonas Jones and the Rev. John Todd having promptly
turned over to Brown the arms stored in the clergyman's
cellar, he was able to write on August 13 to Sanborn that he
had overhauled and cleaned up those that were most rusted.
All were in "middlihg good order." " The question then was
how to get them to Kansas, and this involved also a deci-
sion as to Brown's owr policy. Although apparently anxious
to return to Kansas at once, he did not leave Tabor for the
Territory until the day he saw Forbes off for the East at
Nebraska City, November 2. Various reasons are apparently
responsible for the delay : the failure of Kansas friends to come
to him; the desire to await the outcome of the fall elections;
an injury to his back, and a recurrence of his fever and ague.
The arms were finally left behind; when Brown started for
Lawrence, he went in a wagon drawn by two horses and driven
by his son Owen.

300 JOHN BROWN

As to Brown's return to Kansas, James H. Holmes wrote,
on August i6," that there might be a very good opening for
the "business," for which Brown had bought his "stock of
materials, . . . about the first Monday in October next. . . .
I am sorry," he continued,

"that you have not been here, in the territory, before. I think that
the sooner you come the better so that the people & the Territo-
rial authorities may become familiarized with your presence. This
is also the opinion of all other friends with whom I have conversed
on this subject. You could thus exert more influence. Several times
we have needed you very much."

But Augustus Wattles, a wise counsellor, wrote on August
21 without enthusiasm as to Brown's final arrival, that
"those who had entertained the idea of resistance [to outside
authority] have entirely abandoned the idea."*' Only the
erratic Lane, who was then the sole person trying to stir up
strife in Kansas, and is accused by reputable witnesses of
planning schemes of wholesale massacre of pro-slavery men
through a secret order, was on fire for Brown's presence
in the Territory, but it was the Tabor arms rather than
their owner he really desired. His first letter to Brown ran
thus:

(Private)

Lawrence Sept. 7, 57.
Sir

We are earnestly engaged in perfecting an organization for the
protection of the ballot box at the October election (first Monday.)
Whitman & Abbott have been east after money & arms for a month
past, they write encouragingly, & will be back in a few days. We
want you with all the materials you have. I see no objection to your
coming into Kansas publicly. I can furnish you just such a force
as you may deem necessary for your protection here & after you
arrive. I went up to see you but failed.

Now what is wanted is this — write me concisely what trans-
portation you require, how much money & the number of men
to escort you into the Territory safely & if you desire it I will
come up with them.

Yours respectfully

J. H. Lane."

To this Brown replied, on the i6th of September," that
he had previously written to Lane of his "strong desire" to

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 301

see him; "as to the job of work you enquire about I suppose
that three good teams with well covered waggons, & ten really
ingenious, industrious men (not gassy) with about $150. in
cash, could bring it about in the course of eight or ten days."
Before an answer to this could arrive, Brown learned from
Redpath, who also hoped to see him in the Territory soon,
that Lane had appointed him "Brigadier-General 2nd Bri-
gade 1st Division," 88 rather an empty honor, for Lane was as
generous with brigadier-generalcies as a profligate European
potentate with decorations for his creditors, even casual vis-
itors to the Territory receiving these commissions.^' Certain
it is that this distinction did not cause Brown to exert himself
additionally to enter Kansas, not even when there appeared
a Mr. Jamison, who bore the high-sounding title of "Quarter-
master-General of the Second Division." "General" Jamison
brought a letter from Lane, dated Falls City, September 29,'°
declaring that "it is all important to Kansas that your things
should be in at the earliest possible moment & that you should be
much nearer at hand than you are." He enclosed fifty dollars,
added that "Gen'l" Jamison had more, and insisted that
"every gun and all the ammunition" be sent in. "I do not
know that we will have to use them, but I do know we should
be prepared." All of this made not the slightest impression
on Brown, as Jamison came alone, having left the ten staunch
men Brown had asked for "about thirty miles back." The
names of these men were all unknown to him, and on inquir-
ing about Jamison, Brown found that "Tabor folks (some of
them) speak slightingly of him, notwithstanding that he too
is a general." '' Moreover, Jamison brought no teams with
him. Brown thereupon returned the fifty dollars to Lane with

the following letter: '^

Tabor Iowa 30 Sept. 57.
My dear sir

Your favor from Falls City by Mr. Jamison is just received also
$50. (fifty dollars) sent by him, which I also return by same hand as
I find it will be next to impossible in my poor state of health to go
through in such very short notice, four days only remaining to get
ready load up & go through. I think, considering all the uncertain-
ties of the case want of teams &c, that I should do wrong to set out.
I am disappointed in the extreme.

Very respectfully your friend

John Brown.

302 JOHN BROWN

The next day, Brown wrote at length to Mr. Sanborn, en-
closing copies of his correspondence with Lane." He outlined
his immediate future as follows: "I intend at once to put the
supplies I have in a secure place, and then to put myself and
such as may go with me where we may get more speedy com-
munications, and can wait until we know better how to act
than we do now." He also wrote: " I am now so far recovered
from my hurt as to be able to do a little; and foggy as it is,
'we do not give up the ship.' I will not say that Kansas, wa-
tered by the tears and blood of my children, shall yet be free
or I fall." Brave as this sentiment is, it only increases the
mystery of Brown's delaying at Tabor. In this same letter
to Sanborn, he wrote in high praise of Lane's speech at the
Grasshopper Falls convention, and throughout, Lane had been
more sympathetic to Brown than any of the other Kansas
leaders. There is nothing to show that the injury of which
he wrote twice to Lane was a serious one. Brown did not re-
port it to Mr. Sanborn in his long letter of August 13, after
his arrival in Tabor, nor is there any mention of it in his
family letters of this period, so far as they have been preserved.
True, his financial conditions had not improved, because he
had apparently received from the East only $72.68, which
came from James Hunnewell, Treasurer of the Middlesex
County Massachusetts Kansas Aid Committee.'* Besides
having Owen Brown and Hugh Forbes to aid him, he was
in a community not only intensely Abolition, but at this
time extremely loyal to him personally, and ready to help.
Yet there was none of the determination to reach Kansas at
any cost, to be expected from the iron-nerved man who cap-
tured Harper's Ferry. An excuse given by Brown to Mr. San-
born was the lack of news: " I had not been able to learn by
papers or otherwise distinctly what course had been taken in
Kansas until within a few days; and probably the less I have
to say the better." Still, he had received a number of letters
from friends in Kansas, and Tabor was always obtaining
news from there. Why did he not despatch Owen Brown or
Forbes, or go himself quietly, if he was in doubt?

Four days after writing as above to Mr. Sanborn, Brown's
state of mind appears from a letter of October 5 to the Adairs
at Osawatomie," in which he said:

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 303

" I have been trying all season to get to Kansas; but have failed
as yet through ill health, want of means to pay Freights, travelling
expenses &c. How to act now; I do not know. If you have not already
sent me the $95 sent for me; to my family last season; I would be
most glad to have it come by Mr. Charles P. Tidd; if you can do it
without distressing yourself, or family."

In addition, he asked for all that Mr. Adair could tell him
about conditions in Kansas, and for "reliable Kansas late
papers." Obviously, Brown, grim, self-willed, resolute chief-
tain that he generally was, appears baffled here and lacking
wholly in a determination to reach the scene of action at any
cost. Whether it was because of physical disability; or fear of
arrest and punishment for the Pottawatomie crimes; or mere
uncertainty as to the drift of affairs in Kansas ; or whether his
mind was now so bent on Virginia that he had lost interest
in all else, and did not wish to lose his arms; or whether the
physical and financial difficulties were insurmountable, or
because of all these reasons, that he lingered so long in Tabor,
is not likely ever to become known. It will be seen that,
when he finally reached Kansas, he stayed but a few days,
was practically in hiding, and gave more time and thought
to securing recruits for Harper's Ferry than to anything
else.

At least one of the Massachusetts backers was Impatient
and angry at the delay, — Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
then, as always in the Abolition days, flaming for quick and
vigorous action. To soothe his discontent, Mr. Sanborn wrote
to him thus on September 11, in defence of Brown: '« ,

"... You do not understand Brown's circumstances. . . . He
is as ready for a revolution as any other man, and is now on the
borders of Kansas safe from arrest but prepared for action, but he
needs money for his present expenses, and active support. I believe
he is the best Disunion champion you can find, and with his hundred
men, when he is put where he can raise them, and drill them (for he
has an expert drill officer with him) will do more to split the Union
than a list of 50,000 names for your Convention, good as that is.

"What I am trying to hint at is that the friends of Kansas are
looking with strange apathy at a movement which has all the ele-
ments of fitness and success — a good plan, a tried leader, and a
radical purpose. If you can do anything for it now, in God's name
do it — and the ill result of the new policy in Kansas may be pre-
vented."

304 JOHN BROWN

This letter is of special value in view of subsequent efforts
to make Brown appear as one who had no sympathy with the
disunion doctrines of the radical wing of the Abolitionists."
The fact remains that at this time Brown himself was not
willing to do and dare at any cost, and was unable to triumph
over the obstacles that confronted him at Tabor, until finan-
cial aid finally came from E. B. Whitman in Lawrence. The
latter reported to Mr. Stearns, under date of October 25,'*
that he had borrowed one hundred and fifty dollars to send
to Brown, who would be at Lawrence "a week from Tuesday
[November 3] at a very important council. Free State Cen-
tral Com., Ter. Executive Com., Vigilance Committee of 52,
Generals and Capts of the entire organization." "By great
sacrifice," wrote Lane to Brown on October 30,'' "we have
raised, & send by Mr. Tidd, $150. I trust the money will be
used to get the guns to Kansas, or as near as possible. . . .
One thing is certain: if they are to do her any good, it will be
in the next few days. Let nothing interfere in bringing them
on." This time Brown accepted the money, — he also received
one hundred dollars from the Adairs at this juncture, — and
entered Kansas, without, however, gratifying Lane by bring-
ing in the arms. He set out on November 2, parting from
Forbes at Nebraska City, and drove straight to the vicinity of
Lawrence, where he stopped at the home of E. B. Whitman,
arriving after the council at which Mr. Whitman had hoped
for his presence — probably on November 5.

He stayed but two days with Mr. Whitman,* obtaining
tents and bedding and some more money, five hundred dol-
lars, from that able agent of the Massachusetts Kansas Com-
mittee, who, in the following February, could not conceal his
vexation at Brown's disappearance from Kansas. After
receiving the supplies, wrote Mr. Whitman,""

"he then left, declining to tell me or anyone where he was going
or where he could be found, pledging himself, however, that if
difficulties should occur he would be on hand and pledging his life
to redeem Kansas from slavery. Since then nothing has been heard
of him and I know of no one, not even his most intimate friends,

* Among those he saw at this time was William A. Phillips, who recorded in the
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1879, the outlines of their conversation, which
he erroneously placed in February, 1857, instead of November of that year.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 305

who know where he is. In the meantime he has been much wanted,
and very great dissatisfaction has been expressed at his course and
now I do not know as even his services would be demanded in any
emergency."

It is interesting to note in this connection that, in Novem-
ber, 1857, a Free State "Squatters' Court" was organized in
the southern Kansas counties of Linn, Anderson and Bour-
bon, for the trial of contested land claims and similar cases.
In order to inspire terror, the judge of the court was called
"Old Brown," although John Brown was distant from the
Territory. Dr. Rufus Gilpatrick was elected judge of the
court.'"' If John Brown was absent, his reputation was on
hand and in service.

Within a week, Brown was in Topeka, from which place he
reported as follows to Mr. Stearns:""'

Topeka Kansas T. i6th Nov 1857
Dear Friend

I have now been in Kansas for more than a Week: & for about
Two days with Mr. Whitman, & other friends at Lawrence. I find
matters quite unsettled; but am decidedly of the opinion that there
will be no use for the Arms or ammunition here before another
Spring. I have them all safe, &• together unbroken: 6" mean to keep
them so: until I can see how the matter will be finally terminated.
I have many calls uppon me for their distribution; but shall do no
such thing until I am satisfyed that they are really needed. I mean
to be busily ; but very quietly engaged in perfecting my arangements
during the Winter. Whether the troubles in Kansas will continue or
not; will probably depend on the action of Congress the coming
Winter. Mr. Whitman has paid me $500 for you which will meet
present wants as I am keeping only a small family. Before get-
ting your letter saying to me not to draw on you for the $7000 (by
Mr. Whitman) I had fully determined not to do it unless driven
to the last extremity. / did not mean that the secret service money
I asked for; should come out of you; & hope it may not. Please
make this hasty line answer for friend Sanborn; & for other friends
for this time. May God bless you all; is the earnest wish of your
greatly obliged Friend

John Brown

P S If I do not use the Arms & Ammunition in actu.al service;
I intend to restore them unharmed ; but you must not flatter your-
self on that score too soon.

Yours in Truth
J B

3o6 JOHN BROWN

To the Adairs he wrote on November 17 ii"' "I have been
for some days in the territory but keeping very quiet, &
looking about to see how the land lies. We left Tabor at once
on the return of Mr. Tidd who brought us your letter; & $100
cash. ... I do not wish to have any noise about me at pre-
sent; as / do not mean to 'trouble Israel.' " Kansas at that
time was quiet enough, despite Lane's feeling that the arms
might be needed. The election of October 5 for the new Ter-
ritorial Legislature and for delegate to Congress had resulted
in a great Free State victory. The Free State men elected
their delegate by 4089 votes and chose thirty-three out of
fifty-two members of the Legislature. Governor Walker set
aside the fraudulent returns from several precincts in which
there had been scandalous frauds ; but there was no allegation
of interference from outside the State. It is hard to understand
what vague fears or wild schemes led Lane to think on
October 30 that there might be some important happenings
within the next few days. Marcus J. Parrott, the Free State
delegate to Congress, had received his certificate of election,
and the utmost tranquillity reigned. The Lecompton Constitu-
tional convention did not, it is true, adjourn until Novem-
ber 3, and the product of its deliberation, or rather of the delib-
erations of the Southern leaders in Washington, was not yet
on its way to the Capitol, where the debate over it, with
Stephen A. Douglas opposed, was to absorb the nation for a
period of three months, February, March and April of 1858.
But Lane was not justified, even then, in anticipating any
fraud or outrage calling for forcible intervention; his own
opportunity, in which he was at his best, came later in No-
vember, when, by stumping the Territory, he largely induced
the acting Governor, Stanton, to call a special session of the
Legislature to order the submission of the Lecompton Con-
stitution to the people for approval.

In brief, the party of peace was in the ascendant; even in
the East there was beginning to be a realization that successes
at the polls were more effective than "Beecher's Bibles."
Thus Mr. Stearns wrote on November 14 to E. B. Whit-
man: i"* " I believe your true policy is, to meet the enemy at
the polls, and vote them down. You can do it and should do
it, only being prepared to defend yourselves if attacked but

NEW FRIENDSFOR OLD VISIONS 307

by no means to attack them." This was treachery to' Brown's
blood-and-iron policy in the home of his friends. The decision
of the Free State leaders to make the best of the situation and
work under the existing Territorial government, instead of
refusing to have anything to do with it, involved, of course, a
complete change of policy. It touched no responsive chord in
Brown's breast. One of his biographers remarks that there
was no fighting for him to do in 1857 because he had done his
work so thoroughly in 1856. Nothing could be further from
the fact. The progress to freedom and prosperity of Kansas
was due to several causes, but especially to an abandonment of
the policy of carrying on an unauthorized war, and of meet-
ing assassination with assassination.

There is only one allegation that Brown came in touch with
the Free State leaders during his brief stay in Kansas in 1857.
There was then in existence a Free State secret society, called
into being by fear of the Lecompton Constitutional conven-
tion, and determined to prevent the success of the conspiracy
to force slavery upon Kansas through its acts. Mr. R. G.
Elliott, of Lawrence, states ^°^ that the society was pledged to

"'unman' the convention soon after its adjournment, a term of
elastic definition, meaning anything from obtaining resignations
of ofificials by persuasion, to removing them by capital excision.
Abduction was the method indicated at that juncture. . . . John
Brown had recently come from Tabor, Iowa, and was in the neigh-
borhood in seclusion, was communicated with by William Hutch-
inson and expressed his readiness to execute the plans of the
order but with the men exclusively of his own selection. To the
fear expressed by Robinson that Brown would resort to bloodshed,
Hutchinson gave assurance that Brown pledged his faith to be
governed strictly by the expressed wishes of the order, and further-
more that he had surveyed the situation at Lecompton and that he
could seize Calhoun [the head of the Constitutional convention] and
carry him to a place within one hundred miles where he could hold
him safely for three months."

But the scheme was blocked by Calhoun's removing to St.
Joseph.

The most important result of this visit of Brown to Kansas
was his recruiting his first men for the Harper's Ferry raid.
No sooner had he reached Mr. Whitman's than he sent for
John E. Cook, whom he had met after the battle of Black Jack,

308 JOHN BROWN

before the dispersal of his forces by Colonel Sumner.'"^ When
Cook came, Brown informed him simply that he was engaged
in organizing a company for the purpose of putting a stop to
the aggressions of the pro-slavery forces. Cook agreed to join
him, and recommended Richard Realf, Luke F. Parsons and
R. J. Hinton. On Sunday, November 8, Cook and Parsons
had a long talk with Brown in the vicinity of Lawrence, and
a few days later, Cook received a note asking him to join
Brown, with Parsons if possible, on Monday, November 1 6, at
a Mrs. Sheridan's, two miles south of Topeka. They were to
bring their arms, ammunition and clothing. Cook made all
his preparations to meet Brown at the time appointed, but
had to go alone. He stayed with Brown a day and a half at
Mrs. Sheridan's, and then went to Topeka, where they were
joined by Aaron D. Stevens (Charles Whipple), Charles W.
MofTet and John H. Kagi. They at once left Topeka for Ne-
braska City, and camped at night on the prairie northeast of
Topeka. What followed. Cook stated in his Harper's Ferry
confession :

"Here, for the first, I learned that we were to leave Kansas, to
attend a military school during the winter. It was the intention
of the party to go to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Next morning
[November i8] I was sent back to Lawrence to get a draft of
$80. cashed [$82.50 according to Brown's memorandum-book], and
to get Parsons, Realf and Hinton to go back with me. I got the
draft cashed. Capt. Brown had given me orders to take boat to
St. Joseph, Mo., and stage from there to Tabor, Iowa, where he
would remain for a few days. I had to wait for Realf for three or four
days ; Hinton could not leave at that time. I started with Realf and
Parsons on a stage for Leavenworth. The boats had stopped run-
ning on account of the ice. Stayed one day at Leavenworth, and
then left for Weston where we took stage for St. Joseph, and from
thence to Tabor. I found C. P. Tidd and Leeman at Tabor. Our
party now consisted of Capt. John Brown, Owen Brown, A. D.
Stephens, Chas Moffett, C. P. Tidd, Richard Robertson [Richard-
son], Col. Richard Realf, L. F. Parsons, W. M. Leeman and my-
self.* We stopped some days at Tabor, making preparations to
start. Here we found that Capt Brown's ultimate destination was the
State of Virginia."

The very day that Brown wrote to the Adairs, " I may find
it best to go back to Iowa," he set off for Tabor. The vacilla-

* Cook overlooked here John H. Kagi, who was also present.

NEW FRIENDS FOR OLD VISIONS 309

tion of the last three months was over. His whole soul was now
wrapped up in his Harper's Ferry plan; Kansas was thence-
forth forgotten. Upon her further struggles for freedom, her
soil watered by his children's "tears and blood," he turned his
back; his readiness to die for her if necessary was put aside.
He would never have returned to the Territory, had not
untoward and unexpected circumstances compelled him to
resume the role of border chieftain in 1858. Henceforth his
whole energies were concentrated on "troubling Israel" in
Virginia./'

CHAPTER IX

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT

John Brown's newest recruits, Cook, Realf and Parsons, did
not take kindly to the announcement, at Tabor, that Virginia
was to be the scene of their armed operations against slavery.
Warm words passed between Cook and their leader, for Cook,
like Realf and Parsons, had supposed that they were to be
trained to operate against Border Ruffians only. • After a good
deal of wrangling. Cook stated, they agreed to continue, as
they had not the means to return to Kansas, and the rest
of the party were so anxious that they should go on with
them. Like their associates, these three men were adventur-
ous spirits, spoiled, like thousands of others, by the Kansas
troubles for leading a quiet and settled life. Anything that
smacked of excitement irresistibly appealed to them. Most
of them were very young ; ^ some had seen their names in the
newspapers because of their warfare in Kansas, and were not
averse to further notoriety and the chance to make reputa-
tions for themselves. All of them were steadfast opponents of
slavery and ready to go to any lengths to undermine it. But
beyond all this, in the dominating spirit of John Brown himself
must be found the true reason for their readiness to join so
desperate a venture as Brown outlined to them. There was,
Mr. Parsons testifies, a magnetism about Brown as difficult for
these simpler men to resist as for the philosophers at Concord.'
He walked now more than ever like an old man, and made the
impression of one well on toward threescore and ten, when not
yet fifty-eight years old, with hair that was not white but gray.
Yet there was as little doubt about his vigor and strength as
there was of the intensity of his hatred of slavery. To his new
followers Brown declared that " God had created him to be the
deliverer of slaves the same as Moses had delivered the children
of Israel; "* and they found nothing in this statement to make
them doubt his sanity, or that seemed inherently improbable.
A fanatic they recognized him to be ; but fanatics have at all

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 311

times drawn satellites to them, even when the alliance meant
certain death. And so Parsons, Realf and Cook, like Leeman,
Tidd and Kagi — the latter a man of unusual parts — were
content to go onward across Iowa. During their brief stay in
Tabor, Brown offered to take his men, go to Nebraska City,
and rescue from jail a slave who had run away and had lost his
arm when captured, if the Tabor people would pay the actual
expenses. He promised to put the slave into their hands, but
they were afraid of the consequences and did not give him the

means

5

It was on the long wintry journey to Springdale, Iowa, with
two wagons laden with the Sharp's rifles and ammunition, that
the details of the Virginia venture were gradually discussed.
The caravan left the friendly hamlet of Tabor on December
4, according to the diary of Owen Brown, valuable fragments
of which survived the Harper's Ferry raid." "Took leave of
Tabor folks perhaps for the last time," and "started for Iowa
City, Springdale and Ohio," are the entries which record the
departure. Progress was slow, for all of the men walked and
the weather was bitter cold; sometimes it is recorded that
" Father used harsh words" in keeping the party, and particu-
larly the son, in hand. They camped by the wayside, avoiding
towns as much as possible, and made up in warmth of debate
for the heat they lacked otherwise. On December 8 the entry
reads :

" Cold, wet and snowy; hot discussion upon the Bible and war
. . . warm argument upon the effects of the abolition of slavery upon
the Southern States, Northern States, commerce and manufactures,
also upon the British provinces and the civilizedworld; whence
came our civilization and origin? Talk about prejudices against
color; question proposed for debate, — greatest general, Washing-
ton or Napoleon."

This is an excellent sample of the wide range of the daily
talks through the five months these strongly marked charac-
ters were leagued together. The diary concludes on this day:
"Very cold night; prairie wolves howl nobly; bought and car-
ried hay on our backs two and a half miles ; some of the men
a little down in the mouth — distance travelled 20 miles."
Fortunately, these travellers were inured to hardships. Their
skill with the rifle aided in eking out their limited commissary.

312 JOHN BROWN

Sundays they stayed in camp. Evenings were frequently spent
in singing, by Brown's request; he always joined with a hearty
good-will and named the pieces that he wanted sung, such as
"The Slave has seen the Northern Star," "From Greenland's
Icy Mountains," etc. In this amusement Stevens led; for he
had an exquisite voice, with clear, bugle notes. On Christmas
Day they passed Marengo, a town about thirty miles from
Iowa City; and presumably reached their immediate destina-
tion, Springdale, fifteen miles beyond Iowa City, on the third
day thereafter.

On December 29, according to John Brown's own diary,
Realf began to board with James Townsend, mine host of the
tavern at West Branch, known as the Traveller's Rest. Of this
Quaker Boniface unsupported tradition has it that when
Brown, dismounting from a mule at his door on the trip
through Iowa in October, 1856, asked Townsend whether he
had heard of John Brown, the tavern-keeper, "without reply-
ing, took from his vest pocket a piece of chalk and, removing
Brown's hat, marked it with a large X; he then replaced the
hat and solemnly decorated the back of Brown's coat with
two large X marks ; lastly he placed an X on the back of the
mule." All of which pantomime was an indication that Brown
and his animals were on the free list of the hotel.'

On the 29th, at noon, the other ten members of Brown's
party began to board with John H. Painter, a friendly Quaker
at Springdale, with whom they remained until January 11,
when they moved to the farmhouse of William Maxson, some
distance from the village, which still stands, albeit in a condi-
tion of growing ill-repair.^ One dollar and a half a week was
the moderate price asked for each man's board, "not includ-
ing Washing nor extra lights." Here Brown speedily found it
necessary to abandon his plan to continue on to Ashtabula in
his adopted State. He was unable to sell his teams and wagons
for cash; the financial panic of 1857 was now in full swing;
board was cheap at Springdale, and the village itself was as
remote a place, and as little likely to be thought the scene of
plottings against the peace of a sovereign American state, as
any hamlet in the country. Moreover, Mr. Maxson was ready
to take the teams and wagons ofif Brown's hands and pay
for them by boarding his men. It was a fortunate arrange-

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 313

merit all around, and it left the leader free to go eastward and
unfold to his New England friends the precise nature of the
assault on Israel upon which he was now embarked.

On January 15, 1858, before he left for the East, Brown did,
however, go with some of his men into even greater details of
his Virginia plan than on the winter's trip across Iowa. To
Parsons, for instance, he here mentioned Harper's Ferry for
the first time, but without speaking of an attack upon the
arsenal. John Henrie Kagi knew this Virginia district well,
and Brown's plan, as it was at this time, commended itself
to his mind, which was severely analytical and not given to
enthusiasms.

Just what the plan for the raid then was, appears from
a long letter of Hugh Forbes, of May 14, 1858, to Dr. S. G.
Howe, detailing his differences of opinion with Brown and
demanding that he and his men be disarmed.' As soon as he
reached Tabor, in August, 1857, Forbes says, they compared
notes as to the coming attack on slavery in Virginia and
brought out their respective schemes. Brown proposed, with
from twenty-five to fifty colored and white men, well armed
and taking with them a quantity of spare arms, "to beat up
a slave quarter in Virginia." Forbes objected to this that:

"No preparatory notice having been given to the slaves (no no-
tice could go or with prudence be given them) the invitation to rise
might, unless they were already in a state of agitation, meet with no
response, or a feeble one. To this Brown replied that he was sure
of a response. He calculated that he could get on the first night
from 200 to 500. Half, or thereabouts, of this first lot he proposed
to keep with him, mounting 100 or so of them, and make a dash at
Harper's Ferry manufactory destroying what he could not carry off.
The other men not of this party were to be sub-divided into three,
four or five distinct parties, each under two or three of the original
band and would beat up other slave quarters whence more men
would be sent to join him.

" He argued that were he pressed by the U. S. troops, which after
a few weeks might concentrate, he could easily maintain himself
in the Alleghenies and that his New England partisans would in
the meantime call a Northern Convention, restore tranquility and
overthrow the pro-slavery administration. This, I contended, could
at most be a mere local explosion. A slave insurrection, being from
the very nature of things deficient in men of education and experi-
ence would under such a system as B. proposed be either a flash
in the pan or would leap beyond his control, or any control, when it

314 JOHN BROWN

would become a scene of mere anarchy and would assuredly be
suppressed. On the other hand, B. considered foreign intervention
as not impossible. As to the dream of a Northern Convention, I
considered it as a settled fallacy. Brown's New England friends
would not have courage to show themselves, so long as the issue
was doubtful, see my letter to J. B. dated 23 February."

After weeks of discussion, Brown, Forbes declared, "acqui-
esced or feigned to acquiesce" in a mixed project styled "The
Well-Matured Plan," to which Forbes assented to secure
mutual cooperation. Forbes's own plan, it must be admitted,
sounds much more reasonable and practical than Brown's,
and deserves, therefore, to be made a matter of record, par-
ticularly as it had without doubt its influence on Brown. It
was as follows:

"With carefully selected white persons to organize along the
Northern slave frontier (Virginia and Maryland especially) a series
of stampedes of slaves, each one of which operations would carry
off in one night and from the same place some twenty to fifty slaves;
this to be effected once or twice a month, and eventually once or
twice a week along the non-contiguous parts of the line ; if possible
without conflict, only resorting to force if attacked. Slave women
accustomed to field labor, would be nearly as useful as men. Every-
thing being in readiness to pass on the fugitives, they could be
sent with such speed to Canada that pursuit would be hopeless. In
Canada preparations were to be made for their instruction and
employment. Any disaster which might befall a stampede would
at the utmost compromise those only who might be engaged in that
single one ; therefore we were not bound in good faith to the Abo-
litionists (as we did not jeopardize them) to consult more than those
engaged in this very project. Against the chance of loss by occa-
sional accidents should be weighed the advantages of a series of
successful 'runs.' Slave property would thus become untenable
near the frontier; that frontier would be pushed more and more
Southward, and it might reasonably be expected that the excite-
ment and irritation would impel the proslaveryites to commit some
stupid blunders."

As he stated his plan to Parsons at Springdale, Brown laid
stress upon his determination not to fight or molest any one,
except to help the escaping slaves to defend themselves or to
flee to Canada. This satisfied Parsons for the moment, but it
Is to be noted that the men left at Springdale did not much
discuss the details of their project with one another. Owen

, A CONVENTION' AND A POSTPONEMENT 315

Brown's diary for February tells that on the 12th there was
"talk about our adventures and plans." In the main, discus-
sion ranged from theology and spiritualism to caloric engines,
and covered every imaginable subject between them. Much
talk of war and fighting there was, and drilling with wooden
swords. Stevens, by reason of his service in the Mexican War,
and subsequently in the United States Dragoons, was drill-
master in default of Forbes. Sometimes they went into the
woods to look for natural fortifications ; again they discussed
dislodging the enemy on a hill-top by means of "zigzag
trenches." Forbes's ' Manual ' was diligently perused. Some-
times the men quarrelled with one another; sometimes their
boisterousness during their long stay irritated their peaceful
Quaker neighbors, many of whom were but recent settlers in
that vicinity. Some of them, Owen Brown records, suspected
Mr. Maxson's boarders of being Mormon spies in disguise,
and others declared that they were "no better than runa-
ways" and ought to be driven out of the community, — a
thought suggested, perhaps, by the rapidity with which they
won for themselves sweethearts in the neighborhood by
Othello-like tales of their adventures and daring in their Kan-
sas wanderings. But some of these affairs of the heart resulted
seriously and unfavorably to two or three of the raiders, who
carried the scars thereof to their end. "One of the diversions
at their home was the trial by jury of any member violating
certain proprieties or rules. I see that I have made a note of
a trial given Owen for writing down in his pocket-book the
name of a lady in the vicinity. [Miss Laura Wascott.] Owen
pleaded guilty," *" — thus Parsons recalled an incident of the
winter. But in the main their discipline was rigid ; there were
black marks given for misconduct, and Cook was once seri-
ously and severely censured "for hugging girls in Springdale
Legislature."

This was the mock body with which they beguiled the long
winter evenings, drafting laws for an ideal "State of Topeka ; "
in it Cook, Kagi and Realf displayed their unusual powers as
debaters. Sometimes this legislature met at Mr. Maxson's,
more often in the village school, a mile or so away, and it fol-
lowed the regulation procedure with its bills and its debates.
Soon Realf was in demand as a speaker and lecturer." But

3i6 JOHN BROWN

when at Springdale he was not the poorest of the band in
the manoeuvres and gymnastics practised in the field behind
the Maxson house for three hours every fair day, with a view
to developing the men physically to the utmost advantage.
Only a few of the neighbors suspected or knew that these ex-
ercises were not intended to fit the men for service in behalf
of Kansas. Townsend of the Traveller's Rest ; Maxson and
Painter, Dr. H. C. Gill and Moses Varney were more or less
in John Brown's confidence in 1858, and most of them tried to
dissuade him from his project.'^ But, as the Eastern friends
found out, there was no possibility of success along that line
of argument. Brown had made up his mind to realize the plan
of his lifetime, even though it sorely troubled the peace-lov-
ing Quaker friends at Springdale. One of them. Painter, gave
twenty dollars to Brown, saying: "Friend, I cannot give thee
money to buy powder and lead, but here's twenty dollars
toward thy expenses." "

In short, the Springdale settlement as a whole wished him
well, despite the fact that he was emphatically a man of
war, and that his men, as Owen Brown at this time recorded,
believed with Jay that "he that is guilty of such oppression
[as slavery], making it perpetual upon the posterity of the
oppressed, might justly be killed outright." To them slavery
was the sum of all oppression, and one of their debates was an
inquiry into the reason why the spirit of 1776 was so lacking
in the face of the wrongs of 1858. But this little group of
young men, among whom was Richard Richardson, a runaway
slave from Lexington, Missouri, who had attached himself to
Brown at Tabor, found their stay in Springdale as care-free as
if they had not agreed to challenge with their lives the most
powerful of American institutions. As has been set forth at
length in Irving B. Richman's charming and valuable essay,
'John Brown Among the Quakers,' " the time spent in Spring-
dale was a time of genuine pleasure to Brown's men. They en-
joyed its quiet, as also the rural beauty of the village and the
gentle society of the people." " Brown's men have all gone;
hardly any one remains in Springdale to tell the tale of their
stay; the Maxson and other houses of '58 are falling into de-
cay; but the quiet beauty of Springdale remains. It still con-
sists of one broad street with modest frame houses surrounded

THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SPKINGDALE, IOWA
Where the Mock Legislature met

^Hpr,' " '"''^HbjyH

•

WKB^^ttKI^Kk

jf^

9 y^0^V!* ---■' SI -^^

^1

1

1

HOUSE OF REV. JOHN TODD, TABOR, IOWA
Where John Brown stored his guns and ammunition

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 317

by green and rolling fields ; but the Quaker element is little
noticeable, and there are fewer people residing there to-day
than fifty years ago.

Thirteen days after leaving Tabor, John Brown was in the
Rochester house of Frederick Douglass," who had so long
been the confidant of his plan as to Virginia, and in numer-
ous talks informed him that the time was ripe for the long-
cherished undertaking. On the way East he had stopped in
Lindenville, Ohio, ^^ to visit his son John and talk over with
him the unpleasant developments in regard to Hugh Forbes,
about which Brown had written to his son on January 15, at
Springdale. He had decided, on receiving a violent and abu-
sive letter, to correspond with Forbes through a third person ;
the malevolent spirit displayed by that adventurer making it
necessary for his safety, if for no other reason. Forbes had not
waited long after his return to the East — he had stopped at
Rochester on his way to New York and obtained financial aid
from Frederick Douglass '' — to begin, in December, 1857, a
long series of abusive letters to all of Brown's Eastern friends
and to the leading anti-slavery statesmen in Washington.
Having now firmly convinced himself that he had been out-
rageously treated, he took somewhat of the blackmailer's posi-
tion and demanded money on pain of publishing to the world
the facts about Brown and his plans. The needs of his family,
whether genuine or exaggerated, became an obsession with
him; of Brown he demanded another six months' pay, on the
ground that his engagement was for a year. His begging
was endless and persistent; had he devoted but a tithe of
the energy he put into his letters to earning a livelihood,
he must have supported easily those dependent upon him.
To most of those he addressed he was utterly unknown or at
most a name; he had not, of course, any document to prove
that he had been employed either by the Massachusetts Kan-
sas Committee or the National Kansas Committee. Yet
he insisted that he had been, — misled, perhaps, into believ-
ing that the Kansas Committees were similar to the Euro-
pean revolutionary bodies of which he had had experience
or cognizance. He even forced his way, in the spring of
1858, to Senator Henry Wilson, on the floor of the Senate,
during a recess of that body, and retailed to him in great

3i8 JOHN BROWN

excitement the story of his wrongs, renewing to Senator Wil-
son the demand he had then for some time been making, that
Brown and his men be disarmed. ^^ To William H. Seward he
portrayed Brown as a "very bad man who would not keep his
word;" "a reckless man, an unreliable man, a vicious man." "
As a sample of his utterances, the following will suffice to
show either that the man was unbalanced, or that he was
deliberately trying to use Brown's inability to pay him more
than six months' salary as a club to get means — whether
earned or not — from the New England friends: 2"

• " Capt. B. came to me with a letter from the Rev. Joshua Leavitt
of the New York Independent. Upon my making inquiries of him he
stated that Capt. B. had no means of his own to meet any obliga-
tions but that he believed him to be backed by good and responsible
men, and that at any rate I might repose faith in his word. Brown
on his part trusted to the New England promises made to him,
which promises being subsequently broken (because it was imagined
that the border ruffians had abandoned Kansas) he of course could
not fulfill his compact with me, and when I remonstrated, the hu-
manitarians replied ' We do not know you — We made no engage-
ment with you ; ' while Brown said ' Be quiet do not weaken my
hand ; ' and when I refused to be quiet, since my children were being
killed by slow torture through the culpability of the humanitarians,
then B. denies his obligation to me rather than displease the men
of money. The humanitarians and Brown are guilty of perfidy and
barbarity, to which may be added stupidity. . . . You do not take
into consideration that you are perpetrating an atrocious wrong,
while I am struggling to save my family. I am the natural protector
of my children, nothing but death shall prevent my defending them
against the barbarity of the New England speculators."

He was by this time charging that the whole Virginia pro-
posal was a scheme of A. A. Lawrence and others interested in
New England mills, to make money by temporarily causing
an increase in the price of cotton through the panic bound to
follow Brown's attack.

On February 9, Brown wrote to his son John, directing him
to reply to a letter from Forbes in the following disingenuous
terms:"

_ "Your letter to my father, of 27th January, after mature reflec-
tion, I have decided to return to you, as I am unwilling he should,
with all his other cares, difficulties and trials, be vexed with what
I am apprehensive he will accept as highly offensive and insulting,

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 319

while I know that he is disposed to do all he consistently can for
you, and will do so unless you are yourself the cause of his disgust.
I was trying to send you a little assistance myself, — say about
forty dollars ; but I must hold up till I feel different from what I do
now. I understood from my father that he had advanced you already
six hundred dollars, or six months' pay (disappointed as he has been)
to enable you to provide for your family ; and that he was to give
you one hundred dollars per month for just as much time as you
continued in his service. Now, you in your letter undertake to in-
struct him to say that he had positively engaged you for one year.
I fear he will not accept it well to be asked or told to state what he
considers an untruth. Again, I suspect you have greatly mistaken
the man, if you suppose he will take it kindly in you, or any living
man, to assume to instruct him how he should conduct his own busi-
ness and correspondence. And I suspect that the seemingly spiteful
letters you say you have written to some of his particular friends
have not only done you great injury, but also weakened his hands
with them. While I have, in my poverty, deeply sympathized with
you and your family, who, I ask, is likely to be moved by any ex-
hibition of a wicked and spiteful temper on your part, or is likely to
be dictated to by you as to their duties?"

To this son. Brown explained that he wished to see how a
sharp and well-merited rebuke would affect Forbes; if it had
the desired effect, they would send forty dollars. "I am anx-
ious," Brown added, "to understand him fully before we go
any further. ..."

While the Forbes matter was doubtless much on his mind
during his stay of three weeks with Frederick Douglass, his
chief concern was to bring about a meeting of his warmest
and most generous supporters at Gerrit Smith's, in Peterboro,
in the latter half of February. He declined a call from Mr.
Stearns and Mr. Sanborn to visit Boston because : " ,

"It would be almost impossible for me to pass through Albany,
Springfield, or any of those points, on my way to Boston; & not
have it known ; & my reasons for keeping quiet were such that when
I left Kansas; I kept it from every friend there; & I suppose it is still
understood that I am hiding somewhere in the territory ; & such will
be the idea; untill it comes to be generally known that I am in these
parts. I want to continue that impression as long as I can ; or for
the present. . . . My reasons for keeping still are sufficient to keep
me from seeing my Wife; £f Children: much as I long to do so." ,

To them Brown had written at length, on January 30,23 of
his relief of mind at being again so near them, of his hope of

320 JOHN BROWN

devising a way of meeting some one of the deserted North
Elba homestead :

"The anxiety I feel to see my Wife; & Children once more; I
am unable to describe. . . . The cries of my poor sorrowstricken de-
spairing Children whoose ' tears on their cheeks ' are ever in my Eye;
& whose sighs are ever in my Ears ; may however prevent my enjoy-
ing the happiness I so much desire. But courage, courage, Courage
the great work of my life (the unseen Hand that 'girded me; & who
has indeed holden my right hand may hold it still ;) though I have not
known Him;' at all as I ought:) I may yet see accomplished; {God
helping;) & be permitted to return, &" rest at Evening."

To Thomas Wentworth Higginson he thus appealed : "

" I now want to get for the perfecting of by far the most impor-
tant undertaking of my whole life ; from $500, to $800, within the
next Sixty days. I have written Rev Theodore Parker, George L.
Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn Esqur, on the subject; but do not know
as either Mr Stearns, or Mr Sanborn, are abolitionists I suppose
they are. Can you be induced to opperate at Worcester, & elsewhere
during that time to raise from .4w/i-slavery men & women (or any
other parties) some part of that amount? . . . Hope this is my last
effort in the begging line."

Higginson could not go to Peterboro, neither could Mr.
Stearns; moreover, Brown's letters failed to interest them
because of their indefiniteness. To Mr. Sanborn the invitation
was particularly attractive because of the presence at Gerrit
Smith's of a classmate, Edwin Morton, then a tutor in Mr.
Smith's family. "Our old and noble friend, Captain John
Brown of Kansas arrives this evening," is the entry in Gerrit
Smith's diary on February 18, 1858,2s and his welcome was in
keeping with these words. For Brown this worthy philanthro-
pist conceived a genuine affection, which appears in the later
letters to the raider, and not even in the Stearns or Russell
homes was he a more welcome guest. On this, the most impor-
tant of all visits, he lost no time in unfolding his plans to his
generous patron, and on the 24th he was able to write to his
family: 26 "Mr. Smith & family go all lengths with me," —
a significant phrase in view of Mr. Smith's subsequent efforts
to make it appear that he was not really cognizant of the
lengths to which Brown's plan was to carry them. The final
and most important exchange of views was held when Mr.

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 321

Sanborn arrived, on Washington's Birthday. What took place
then has been set forth in detail by Mr. Sanborn at various
times." In an upper room of the Smith mansion, Brown " un-
folded his plans ' ' for a campaign somewhere in slave territory
east of the AUeghanies, and read to them, so Mr. Sanborn
records,

"the singular constitution drawn up by him [in the Frederick
Douglass house in Rochester] for the government of the territory,
small or large, which he might rescue by force from slavery, and for
the control of his own little band. It was an amazing proposition
— desperate in its character, wholly inadequate in its provision
of means, and of most uncertain result. Such as it was, Brown
had set his heart on it as the shortest way to restore our slave-
cursed republic to the principles of the Declaration of Independ>-
ence; and he was ready to die in its execution — as he did."

Amazing proposition that it was, Brown's auditors gave
him respectful attention until after midnight, "proposing
objections and raising difficulties; but nothing could shake the
purpose of the old Puritan." He was able in some fashion to
meet every criticism of his plans, to suggest a plausible way
out of every difficulty, while to the chief objection, the slender
means for undertaking a war upon the dominating American
institution, he opposed merely a Scriptural text: "If God be
for us, who can be against us?" He wanted to open his cam-
paign in the spring; all he needed was five hundred or eight
hundred dollars, for he now had the arms and sufficient men.
"No argument could prevail against his fixed purpose." The
discussion went over until the next day ; and despite the fool-
hardiness of the venture, despite the strange Constitution,
which to many minds remains the strongest indictment of
Brown's sanity, his will prevailed. He did not at this time,
Mr. Sanborn testifies, speak specifically of starting at Har-
per's Ferry or taking the arsenal ; the point of departure was
left vague, but the general outlines were about as he had
described them to Forbes. Back of it all, in his head, was the
purpose of setting the South afire and precipitating a conflict.
Finally, says Mr. Sanborn : ^^

"We saw we must either stand by him or leave him to dash himself
alone against the fortress he was determined to assault. To with-

322 JOHN BROWN

hold aid would only delay, not prevent him. As the sun was setting
over the snowy hills of the region where we met, I walked for an
hour with Gerrit Smith among woods and fields (then included in
his broad manor) which his father purchased of the Indians and
bequeathed to him. Brown was left at home by the fire, discussing
points of theology with Charles Stewart [Stuart]. Mr. Smith re-
stated in his eloquent way the daring propositions of Brown, whose
import he understood fully, and then said in substance: 'You see
how it is ; our dear old friend has made up his mind to this course,
and cannot be turned from it. We cannot give him up to die alone;
we must support him. I will raise so many hundred dollars for him;
you must lay the case before your friends in Massachusetts, and
ask them to do as much. I see no other way.' I had come to the
same conclusion, and by the same process of reasoning. It was done
far more from our regard for the man than from hopes of immediate
success."

Well might Brown rejoice. With Mr. Smith's wealth and
influence behind him, it could now be only a short while before
he would have in hand the small sum he asked, and be actually
in battle with the forces of slavery.

Mr. Sanborn left on February 24 for Boston, ready to work
for the plan there and summon a gathering of a trusted few
who could be counted on to put their shoulders to the wheel.
He had scarcely left when Brown, in his exaltation and exulta-
tion of spirit, sent him these characteristic lines : 2*

My Dear Friend

Mr Morton has taken the liberty of saying to me that you felt
}/2 inclined to make a common cause with me. I greatly rejoice at
this; for I believe when you come to look at the ample field I labour
in : & the rich harvest which (not only this entire country, but) the
whole world during the present & future generations may reap from
its successful cultivation : you will feel that you are out of your ele-
ment until you find you are in it ; an entire Unit. What an incon-
ceivable amount of good you might so effect; by your counsel, your
example, your encouragement, your natural, & acquired ability; for
active service. And then how very little we can possibly loose? Cer-
tainly the cause is enough to live for; if not to * for. I have only

had this one opportunity in a life of nearly Sixty years, & could I be
continued Ten times as long again, I might not again have another
equal opportunity. God has honored but comparatively a very
small part of mankind with any possible chance for such mighty &
soul satisfying rewards. But my dear friend if you should make up
your mind to do so I trust it will be wholly from the promptings of

* Word omitted.

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 323

your own spirit; after having thoroughly counted the cost. I would
flatter no man into such a measure if I could do it ever so easily. /
expect nothing but to "endure hardness" : but I expect to effect a
mighty conquest even though it be like the last victory of Samson.
I felt for a number of years in earlier life: a steady, strong, desire ;
to die: but since I saw any prospect of becoming a " reaper" in the
great harvest I have not only felt quite willing to live: but have
enjoyed life much; & am now rather anxious to live for a few years
more.

On the same day, Brown left Peterboro for the home of
Dr. and Mrs. J. N. Gloucester, a well-to-do colored couple
of Brooklyn, who by wise investments and steady industry
had accumulated a fortune.'" To them he revealed his plan,
with full confidence in their ability to keep a secret, just as he
got into frank communication with J. W. Loguen, a negro of
Syracuse. These and other colored people assisted him with
counsel and funds, came to believe whole-heartedly in the
success of his project, and remained faithful to the end. On
the nth of March, Brown was in Philadelphia, where he met
on the 15th, at the residence of the Rev. Stephen Smith in
Lombard Street, a little group of colored men, among them
Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Henry H. Garnett and William
Still." To them, too, with surprising but justified faith in the
ability of numbers to keep so important a conspiracy to them-
selves, Brown stated his project and appealed for men and
money, and John Brown, Jr., seconded him, for he had met his
father in Philadelphia to discuss his own part in the great
undertaking. His father wished him to take a trip to "Bed-
ford, Chambersburg, Gettysburg, and Union town, in Pennsyl-
vania, travelling slowly along, and inquiring of every one on
the way or every family of the right stripe." He also urged
his son to go "even to Harper's Ferry." ^^ William Still, long
an active Underground Railroad worker in Philadelphia, was
especially valuable in this time, because of his knowledge of
the Pennsylvania routes and stations.

All through this period Brown was endeavoring to enlist new
recruits. He counted on Frederick Douglass, and the survivors
of his family still feel that the great colored orator failed, when
the real test came, to live up to his obligations. ^^ A particu-
lar disappointment at this period in 1858 was his inability to
reenlist his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, whose services and

324 JOHN BROWN

bravery in Kansas had so commended themselves to him. Of
his daughter Ruth he asked whether any plan could

"be devised whereby you could let Henry go 'to school' (as you
expressed it in your letter to him while in Kansas :) I would rather
NOW have him ' for another term ' : than to have a Hundred average
schollars. I have a particular & very important ; {but not danger-
ous) place for him to fill; in the ' school ' ; & I know of no man living;
so well adapted to fill it. I am quite confident some way can be
devised ; so that you; & your children could be imth him ; & be quite
happy even: & safe but ' God forbid' me to flatter you into trouble.
I did not do it before." ^*

The daughter replied in doubt, asking what the post of
his duty was to be, and saying that her husband felt that too
high an estimate had been placed on his "qualifications as
a scholar." Ruth's desire to preserve her husband's life con-
quered in the end her wish to be of service to her father and
the great cause of the Brown family.'* To this Mr. Thompson
probably owes the fact that he is still, at this writing, in the
land of the living.

Before his Philadelphia conference. Brown had made a
hasty trip to Boston, where he met Higginson, Parker, Howe,
Sanborn and Stearns, at the American House during his four
days' stay from March 5 to 8. To Mr. Parker he wrote, on
March 7, asking his aid in "composing a substitute for an
address you saw last season, directed to the officers and sol-
diers of the United States Army." He had never been able to
clothe his ideas in language to satisfy himself, but he tried to
tell the great pulpit orator what he wanted, in these words : '^

"In the first place, it must be short, or it will not be generally
read. It must be in the simplest or plainest language; without the
least affectation of the scholar about it, and yet be worded with
great clearness and power. The anonymous writer must (in the
language of the Paddy) be 'after others,' and not 'after himself,
at all, at all.' If the spirit that 'communicated' Franklin's Poor
Richard (or some other good spirit) would dictate, I think it would
be quite as well employed as the 'dear sister spirits' have been
for some years past. The address "^should be appropriate, and par-
ticularly adapted to the peculiar circumstances we anticipate,
and should look to the actual change of service from that of Satan
to the service of God. It should be, in short, a most earnest and
powerful appeal to man's sense of right, and to their feeUngs of
humanity."

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 325
Brown also asked for a similar short address,

"appropriate to the peculiar circumstances, intended for all per-
sons, old and young, male and female, slaveholding and non-slave-
holding, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation. So by
every male and female prisoner on being set at liberty, and to be
read by them during confinement."

Particularly striking is this passage, since it foreshadows
exactly his treatment of his prisoners at Harper's Ferry :

"The impressions made on prisoners by kindness and plain deal-
ing, instead of barbarous and cruel treatment, such as they might
give, and instead of being slaughtered like vile reptiles, as they might
very naturally expect, are not only powerful, but lasting. Females
are susceptible of being carried away entirely by the kindness of an
intrepid and magnanimous soldier, even when his bare name was
but a terror the day previous."

By this appeal Mr. Parker was not moved, his only reply
being to send to Brown Captain George B. McClellan's
recently issued report on the armies of Europe.'' That Brown
was much concerned with the reading of his followers ap-
pears from his asking Mr. Sanborn, in February, for copies of
Plutarch's 'Lives,' Irving's 'Life of Washington,' the best
written ' Life of Napoleon ' and other similar books, for use at
Springdale.'*

Some idea of the method of raising the funds for Brown
appears from Mr. Sanborn's letters of this period to Mr.
Higginson. On March 8 he reported : ''

"Hawkins* has gone to Philadelphia today, leaving his friends
to work for him. $1000 is the sum set to be raised here — of which
yourself, Mr. Parker, Dr. Howe, Mr. Stearns and myself each are
assessed to raise $100 — Some may do more — perhaps you cannot
come up to that — nor I, possibly — But of $500 we are sure —
and the $1000 in all probability. . . . Hawkins goes to prepare
agencies for his business near where he will begin operations. Dr.
Cabot knows something of the speculation, but not the whole, not
being quite prepared to take stock. No others have been admitted
to a share in the business, though G. R. Russell has been consulted."

A meeting was called for March 20, at Dr. Howe's rooms,
to discuss raising funds, in Mr. Stearns's name. The next day
Mr. Sanborn stated that :

* Brown.

326 JOHN BROWN

" Mr. Stearns is Treasurer of the enterprise for N. E. — and has

now on hand $150 having paid H $100. . . . Mr. Stearns has

given $100 & promises $200 more, but holds it back for a future
emergency. Mr. Parker has raised his $100 & will do something
more. Dr. H. has paid in $50 and will raise $100 more. ... I paid
Brown $25 — my own subscription — but have as yet been able
to get nothing else — though I shall do so." ^°

By April i there were three hundred and seventy-five dol-
lars in hand, but three weeks later, Brown had received only
four hundred and ten dollars and was calling urgently for
the remainder of the one thousand dollars promised. In all
he received at this time only about six hundred dollars,
together with other sums raised in New York and Philadelphia
— a pittance, indeed, with which to begin his crusade. Mr.
Higginson early did his share. His interview with Brown in
March had made so deep an impression upon him that he was
thereafter ready to do and dare with Brown with unflinching
courage. As it is often said that Brown's chief success lay
in influencing weaker minds, it is worth noting the impres-
sion a single talk with him made upon this able and virile
Worcester clergyman:

" I met him in his room at the American House [No. 126] in March,
1858. I saw before me a man whose mere appearance and bearing
refuted in advance some of the strange perversions which have
found their way into many books, and which often wholly missed
the type to which he belonged. In his thin, worn, resolute face there
were the signs of a fire which might wear him out, and practically
did so, but nothing of pettiness or baseness ; and his talk was calm,
persuasive, and coherent. He was simply a high-minded, unselfish,
belated Covenanter; a man whom Sir Walter Scott might have
drawn, but whom such writers as Nicolay and Hay, for instance,
have utterly failed to delineate. To describe him in their words as
'clean but coarse' is curiously wide of the mark; he had no more
of coarseness than was to be found in Habakkuk Mucklewrath or
in George Eliot's Adam Bede ; he had, on the contrary, that religious
elevation which is itself a kind of refinement; the quality one may
see expressed in many a venerable Quaker face at yearly meeting.
Coarseness absolutely repelled him; he was so strict as to the de-
meanor of his men that his band was always kept small, while that
of Lane was large ; he had little humor, and none of the humorist's
temptation toward questionable conversation." "

On one of his Boston visits, Brown also met the Rev. James
Freeman Clarke at Senator Sumner's residence, according

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 327

to Mr. Clarke, ■'2 where Brown begged to see the coat worn
by the Senator when he was attacked, and "looked at it as a
devotee would contemplate the relic of a saint." This was his
only recorded meeting with the victim of Preston Brooks's as-
sault, the news of which had so stirred Brown and his men
prior to the Pottawatomie murders.

From Philadelphia, John Brown and John, Jr., made a brief
visit to New Haven and New York; at the latter place the
well-known Gibbons and Hopper families, prominent among
the anti-slavery Quakers, were now assisting him. Thence
they went direct to North Elba, on what was to have been a
farewell visit prior to the risking of their lives, arriving on
March 23.''' By April 2 they were at Gerrit Smith's, again
under way, and found Mr. Smith as encouraging as usual.
After a day spent in discussing the Virginia plan, they left for
Rochester, where they separated on April 5, Brown heading
for St. Catherine's, Canada, where he arrived on the 7th in
company with his colored helper, J. W. Loguen." Here he
met by appointment a remarkable negro woman, Harriet
Tubman, known as the " Moses of her People," whom he now
relied upon to work for him among the escaped slaves then
living in large numbers in Canada West, as he later hoped
that she would be a chief guide to the North of the slaves he
wished to free in the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry. Of
her Brown wrote that she was " the most of a man, naturally,
that I ever met with." Well might she win his admiration,
for her exploits in leading runaway slaves to freedom, at the
risk of her own life, form one of the most moving and thrilling
stories of the entire struggle against slavery.

At this time there were some thirty to forty thousand
colored people in Upper Canada, and about twelve hundred in
Toronto, some of them free-born and in good circumstances;
a great majority, "freight" of the Underground Railroad."
At Buxton, near the shore of Lake Erie, was the " Elgin Asso-
ciation," a model colony for escaped slaves; and not far from
this was Chatham, chief town of the County of Kent, also a
favorite place for the colored men who had found under the
British flag the personal liberty denied them under the stars
and stripes. Here were some well-to-do colored farmers and
mechanics, who had established a good school, Wilberforce

328 JOHN BROWN

Institute, for the education of their children, several churches
and a newspaper of their own." Brown soon made up his mind
that this would be the best place for the convention of his fol-
lowers upon which he had now set his heart. He was not will-
ing to commence his raid upon slavery without some formal-
ity. Just as he had drawn up regular by-laws for his Kansas
company to sign, so he now wished to inaugurate his move-
ment only with a certain ceremonial. It would have been
cheaper and easier to have gone direct to the scene of action
in Virginia, but his mind was set on his convention, upon
which he also counted to draw to his enterprise some, if not
many, of the escaped slaves in Canada West.

His visit to St. Catherine's with J. W. Loguen was, there-
fore, in the nature of a reconnoissance. It lasted a trifle less
than three weeks, and included a trip to Ingersoll, Chatham,
and probably to other near-by points. Neither the letters now
available nor Brown's memorandum-book of 1858 have re-
corded any details of his movements. But his pen was ever
busy, and the recruits for his convention were gradually
enlisted, among them a colored physician. Dr. Martin R.
Delany, who subsequently served in the colored volunteers,
with the rank of major, during the Civil War. To see this able
man, Brown went three times to Chatham " before finding
him, refusing on the first two occasions to leave his name or
address. To him Brown stated that it was men he wanted, not
money, and Dr. Delany promised to be on hand at the Chat-
ham convention and to bring others as well. Finally, Brown
was ready to lead to Canada the " flock of sheep " he had win-
tered at Springdale, to which place he journeyed by way of
Chicago. He arrived at Mr. Maxson's home the 25th of April,
and two days later was ready to start, as he wrote on that day
to his family.

He found the band of conspirators reinforced by George B.
Gill, a native of Iowa, and Stewart Taylor, a young Canadian,
who responded to his name at the final roll-call in Harper's
Ferry and there lost his life. Gill, a man of education and some
literary ability, had known Brown in previous enterprises, had
been in Kansas and introduced Taylor to John Brown. Two
other notable accessions were the brothers Coppoc, Barclay
and Edwin, who also participated in the final raid, much to

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 329

the grief of their Quaker mother, whose quaint and fast-
decaying house may still be seen in Springdale. A woman of
marked intelligence, a strong Abolitionist, she had herself in-
stilled into the minds of her sons that hatred of slavery which
had led Barclay to Kansas in 1857, to aid in making it a free
State, and resulted in Edwin's giving up his life on the scaffold
with that pure faith and calm resignation naturally associated
with the Quaker training. ^^ The Coppocs were not ready to go
to Chatham, and so did not figure in the convention, as did the
men who had boarded at Mr. Maxson's. These John Brown
found still harmonious, despite some occasional friction, to
be expected, perhaps, among vigorous men of strong, restless
character, cooped up in one small farmhouse. Leeman had
given Owen Brown the greatest concern of all," and Tidd had
laid himself open to a grave charge by the father of a Quaker
maiden resident not far away.^" But aside from this, there
seems to have been genuine regret at the leaving of this body
of vigorous young men who had done so much to enliven and
entertain the neighborhood ; several of them kept up a lengthy
correspondence with friends in Springdale up to the hour of
the tragedy which gave them a place in history. Certainly,
Brown could not complain of the spirit of his followers, when
he rejoined them. Stevens wrote to his sister on April 8: "I
am ready to give up my life for the oppressed if need be. I
hope I shall have your good will and sympathy in this glortous
cause." " Leeman rejoiced that he was "warring with slav-
ery the greatest Curse that ever infested America." Richard
Realf's and John E. Cook's letters are in a similar strain. '

Leaving Springdale with nine of the men, shortly before
noon on the 27th, Brown and his followers took a three o'clock
train for West Liberty, and arrived at Chicago at five the next
morning. For breakfast they went to the Massasoit House,
only to be told that one of their number, the negro, Richard
Richardson, could not be served with them. True to their
belief that all men were created free and equal, and to
their comradeship, they marched out of the hotel. Brown at
their head, and soon found another hostelry, the Adams House,
at which the color-line was not drawn. '^ Leaving Chicago at
four-thirty, the ten were in Detroit at six o'clock on the morn-
ing of Thursday, April 29, and were breakfasting at the Villa

330 JOHN BROWN

Tavern, Chatham, by nine o'clock. "Ten persons begin to
board with Mr. Barber 29th April at Dinner. Three others
began May ist at Breakfast," Brown's memorandum-book
records. He himself made his headquarters with James M.
Bell, a colored man. "Here," wrote Richard Realf to Dr.
H. C. Gill at Springdale,"

"we intend to remain till we have perfected our plans, which will
be in about ten days or two weeks, after which we start for China.
Yesterday and this morning we have been very busy in writing to
Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips and others of like kin to meet
us in this place on Saturday, the 8th of May, to adopt our Constitu-
tion, decide a few matters and bid us goodbye. Then we start. . . .
The signals and mode of writing are (the old man informs me) all
arranged. . . . Remember me to all who know our business, but to
all others be as dumb as death."

Despite Brown's admonition to his men to write no letters
while here, John E. Cook was another who corresponded
freely with friends in Springdale; to two young women he
observed ^* that only one thing kept him

" from being absolutely unhappy, and that is the consciousness that
I am in the path of duty. I long for the lOth of May to come. I am
anxious to leave this place, to have my mind occupied with the great
work of our mission. . . . Through the dark gloom of the future I
fancy I can almost see the dawning light of Freedom ; . . . that I
can almost hear the swelling anthem of Liberty rising from the mil-
lions who have but just cast aside the fetters and the shackles that
bound them. But ere that day arrives, I fear that we shall hear the
crash of the battle shock and see the red gleaming of the cannon's
lightning."

Not only were compromising letters of this kind written
freely to friends and relations, but similar ones received were
carried about by all the men and kept intact up to the raid
itself.

Finally, the 8th of May, the day for the opening of the
convention, arrived. None of the Eastern backers were pre-
sent, neither Wendell Phillips, nor Gerrit Smith, nor F. B.
Sanborn, and no white men save Brown's own party. This
was now composed, besides himself, of Leeman, Stevens, Tidd,
Gill, Taylor, Parsons, Kagi, Moffet, Cook, Realf and Owen
Brown, — twelve in all. The colored men were thirty-four
in number, among them Richard Richardson, Osborn P.

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 331

Anderson, James H. Harris, afterwards Congressman from
North Carolina and Dr. Delany. Only one of these thirty-
four, O. P. Anderson, actually reached the firing-line. The
presiding officer was William Charles Munroe, pastor of a
Detroit colored church, and the secretary was John H. Kagi."
There were really two distinct conventions. The first, a " Pro-
visional Constitutional Convention," met on Saturday, May 8,
at ten in the morning, in a frame school-building on Princess
Street, the remaining sessions being held in the First Baptist
Church and in " No. 3 Engine House," which had been erected
by some colored men, who also formed the fire-company. In
order to mislead any one who might inquire the meaning of
these assemblages, it was stated that they were for the pur-
pose of organizing a Masonic lodge among the colored people.
After the election of officers, on motion of Dr. Delany, John
Brown arose to state at length the object of the permanent
convention and the plan of action to follow it. Dr. Delany
and others spoke in favor of both projects, and they were
agreed to by general assent.

In his testimony before the Mason Committee, early in
i860, Richard Realf thus set forth the substance of the leader's
speech : ^'

" John Brown, on rising, stated that for twenty or thirty years the
idea had possessed him like a passion of giving liberty to the slaves.
He stated immediately thereafter, that he made a journey to Eng-
land in 1 85 1, in which year he took to the international exhibition
at London, samples of wool from Ohio, during which period he made
a tour upon the European continent, inspecting all fortifications,
and especially all earth-work forts which he could find, with a view,
as he stated, of applying the knowledge thus gained, with modifica-
tions and inventions of his own, to such a mountain warfare as he
thereafter spoke upon in the United States. John Brown stated,
moreover, that he had not been indebted to anybody for the sug-
gestion of that plan ; that it arose spontaneously in his' own mind ;
that through a series of from twenty to thirty years it had gradually
formed and developed itself into shape and plan."

After telling of his studies of Roman warfare, of the success-
ful opposition to the Romans of the Spanish chieftains, of the
successes of Schamyl, the Circassian chief, and of Toussaint
L'Ouverture in Hayti, and of his own familiarity with Haytian
conditions. Brown spoke of his belief that,

332 JOHN BROWN

"upon the first intimation of a plan formed for the liberation of
the slaves, they would immediately rise all over the Southern
States. lib uuppu^ud- that they would come into the mountains to
join him, -whecei he jpeoyoaedrtg-wgfk, and that by flocking to his
standard they would enable him (by making the line of mountains
which cuts diagonally through Maryland and Virginia down through
the Southern States into Tennessee and Alabama, the base of his
operations) to act upon the plantations on the plains lying on each
side of that range of mountains, and thai we should be ablo to os-
tabUsb-ewacl'VCB in the fastnesses, and if any hostile action (as
would be) were taken against us, either by the militia of the separate
States or by the armies of the United States, we purposed to defeat
first the militia, and next, if it were possible, the troops of the United
States, and then organize the freed blacks under this provisional
constitution, whioh -would- carve o«l-fm' the luralilji r.if iiu jutis-
diction-aU-that-fnountainous region in whioh- the blacks' • irei »■ to
bfe-eatablished-^and in whieh-they were Lu Uti taught Llie uatfi*} -and
raeeliafweal- arts; and-ttr-fae iustnictetUn atl the bustnesff-of-hft.
Schools were also to-be-estat^i^edr and so on. Thaf-was-it. . . .
The negroes were to constitute the soldiers. John Brown expected
that all the free negroes in the Northern States would immediately
flock to his standard. He expected that all the slaves in the South-
ern States would do the same. He believed, too, that as many of the
free negroes in Canada as could accompany him, would do so. . . .
The slaveholders were to be taken as hostages, if they refused to let
their slaves go. It io' a^wotake to gu{?p85eJ that"lllti"yweie"Hj be
•jrilted-^ drey^wefe-not to be. They were to be held as hostages for
the safe treatment of any prisoners of John Brown's who might fall
into the hands of hostile parties. . . . All the non-slaveholders
were to be protected. Those who would-not juiu lln;'uiganii.uliui> of
J«ba-Brevw)-,-blIl wllU"WOUld HOT Of>pdse it, were'tu 'bu piutetltd;
but those w4tp did t^ppwst: it-,"trere'tu be-tretrted jo, 'llie'blUVtiholders
thamsflii.^>s. . . . -Thwa, Jelwi ■Diuwn'baM "Lfrai'he beKevedt a-»*M-_
Ge5a£ulincui:6ioa.4:»»ld W-maderl4rat' it could- be successfully ntain-
itam»d ; that thg seV'^al slave States could be forced, (from the posi-
tion in which^hey /ound themselyǤ) to, recogni^S tae freedom of
those wh^Hiad beyfen slaves within the respective limits ofychose
Statesj^^hat immediately sjKfn recognition^ were made,/Th/n the
placeeof all the oncers fleeted under tlji* provisionalx^^onstitutmn
becmne vacant, aridj*e1Jv elections were to be mades'^oreovepf^o
salaries were to be paid to the office-holders under this constitution.
It was purely out of that which we supposed to be philanthropy —
love for the slave."

After this address, John Brown presented a plan of organ-
ization, entitled "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances
for the People of the United States," and moved the read-

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 333

ing of it. To this there was objection until an oath of se-
crecy was taken by each member of the convention. An oath
being moved, John Brown arose and informed the convention
that he had conscientious scruples about taking any oath;
that all he desired was a promise that any person who there-
after divulged any of the proceedings "agreed to forfeit the
protection which that organization could extend over him."
Nevertheless, the oath was voted and the president adminis-
tered the obligation. Thereupon the proposed Constitution
was read, and after debate on one article, the forty-sixth, it
was unanimously adopted. The afternoon session was brief,
being occupied solely with signing the Constitution, "con-
gratulatory remarks" by Dr. Delany and Thomas M. Kin-
nard and final adjournment. At the evening session the con-
vention was a new body, — that called by the Constitution
adopted by the "Provisional Convention," "for the purpose
of electing officers to fill the offices specially established and
named by said Constitution." With the same officers, the
new convention appointed a committee to make nominations.
Upon its failing to do so promptly, the convention itself
elected John Brown Commander-in-Chief, and John H. Kagi,
Secretary of War. On Monday, May 10, the balloting was
resumed. Realf was made Secretary of State, George B. Gill,
Secretary of the Treasury, Owen Brown, Treasurer, and
Osborn P. Anderson and Alfred M. Ellsworth, members of
Congress. After the position of President had been declined
by or for two colored men, the filling of this and other vacan-
cies was left to a committee of fifteen, headed by John Brown.
It is not of record, however, that the vacancies were ever
filled.

If, after a lapse of fifty years, it seems at first as if the Con-
stitution and the entire proceeding belonged to the domain
of the mock Springdale legislature, the earnestness and seri-
ousness of the Chatham proceedings cannot be denied, so far
as the moving spirits were concerned. Some of the men doubt-
less signed without much consideration; but to the colored
men, at least, it seemed as if freedom from bondage were
really in sight for their enslaved brethren. Since Brown was
able to overrule the objections of practical men like Gerrit
Smith and George L. Stearns, it is, of course, not to be won-

334 JOHN BROWN

dered at if the little gathering in Chatham accepted at its face
value the extraordinary document which John Brown laid
before them. They could but applaud the admirably written
preamble : "

"Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United
States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and
unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another por-
tion ; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and
hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard
and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in
our Declaration of Independence: Therefore, we CITIZENS oi the
UNITED STATES, and the OPPRESSED PEOPLE, who, by
a RECENT DECISION of the SUPREME COURT ARE DE-
CLARED to have NO RIGHTS WHICH the WHITE MAN is
BOUND to RESPECT; TOGETHER WITH ALL OTHER
PEOPLE DEGRADED by the LAWS THEREOF, DO, for
the TIME BEING ORDAIN and ESTABLISH for OUR-
SELVES the FOLLOWING PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION
and ORDINANCES, the BETTER to PROTECT our PER-
SONS, PROPERTY, LIVES, and LIBERTIES: and to GOVERN
our ACTIONS."

This statement, in its definition of slavery as war, is the key-
note to Brown's philosophy, and explains better than anything
else why it was consistent with his devout religious charac-
ter for him to kill, and to plunder for supplies in Kansas, and
to take up arms against slavery itself. There was for him no
such thing as peace so long as there were chains upon a single
slave; and he was, therefore, at liberty to plot and intrigue, to
prepare for hostilities, without regard to public order or the
civil laws. Passing beyond the preamble, the Constitution *
suggests the word "insane," which the historian Von Hoist
applies to certain of its provisions. It actually contemplates
not merely the government of forces in armed insurrection
against sovereign States and opposed to the armies of the
United States, but actually goes so far as to establish courts,
a regular judiciary and a Congress. As if that were not
enough, it provides for schools for that same training of the
freed slaves in manual labor which is to-day so widely hailed
as the readiest solution of the negro problem. Churches, too,
were to be "established as soon as may be," — as if anything

* See Appendix.

A CONVENTION AND A POSTPONEMENT 335

could be more inconsistent with the fundamental plan of
breaking the forces up into small bands hidden in mountain
fastnesses, subsisting as well as possible off the land, and prob-
ably unable to communicate with one another. At this and
at other points the whole scheme forbids discussion as a prac-
tical plan of government for such an uprising as was to be car-
ried out by a handful of whites and droves of utterly illiterate
and ignorant blacks. As has already been said, it is still a
chief indictment of Brown's saneness of judgment and his
reasoning powers. Von Hoist, one of his greatest admirers,
describes it as a "piece of insanity, in the literal sense of the
word," and a "confused medley of absurd, because absolutely
inapplicable, forms." ^* Yet no one can deny that in many of
its articles the Brown Constitution is admirable in spirit, as,
for instance, in the provisions for the enforcement of morality
and for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners, as well as in
other measures well adapted to the undertaking. As a chart
for the course of a State about to secede from the Union and
to maintain itself during a regular revolution, the document
was also not without its admirable features. It is impossible,
however, as regards this extraordinary Constitution, to forget
that it was drawn for the use of possibly fifty white men and
hordes of escaping slaves fighting for their lives, not on the
open prairies of Kansas, or among its scattered hamlets, but
in well-populated and well-settled portions of the South.

The Constitution simply emphasizes anew Brown's belief
that he really could engage in warfare against slavery, and
could keep at bay the United States army while doing so ; that
with a handful of men and a few hundred guns and mediaeval
pikes, he could grapple and shake to its foundations an insti-
tution the actual uprooting of which nearly cost the United
States Government its existence, and necessitated the sacrific-
ing of vast treasure and an enormous number of human lives.
Brown was careful even to provide that no treaty of peace —
presumably either with the United States or the several South-
ern States — could be ratified save by his President, his
Vice-President, a majority of his Congress and of his Supreme
Court, and of the general officers of the army; that is, his half-
company of officers was to be considered equal as a treaty-
making power with a great nation and its coordinate parts ! It

336 JOHN BROWN

is best, therefore, not to attempt to analyze the Chatham Con-
stitution, but to admire its wording and its composition, and
lay it aside as a temporary aberration of a mind that in its other
manifestations defies successful classification as unhinged or
altogether unbalanced. Fanatical, Brown's mind was ; concen-
trated on one idea to the danger-point, most alienists would
probably agree; but still it remained a mind capable of ex-
pressing itself with rare clearness and force, focussing itself
with intense vigor on the business in hand, and going straight
to the end in view.